Friday, August 28, 2009
Group C Ch. 7 & 8 Blog
View AND Read the first sample chapters (available on line) (Chapters 7 & 8) Using the Writer's Notebook in Grades 3-8: A Teacher's Guide at (http://www1.ncte.org/library/files/Store/Books/Sample/35006chap1-2_x.pdf) and begin your writers notebook then post entries on Class Blog( Keep your own notebook and share your response to it AND try out an idea in your class)Engage in an online discussion group on our class blog. Please read designated chapters and 1)propose “meaty” fat questions to discuss,2) make connections to your teaching and work with students, and 3) make connections to your work as a writer ). 4)Please respond to two of your classmates’s entries in your study group.4) Consider how what you have learned from this book might support the work of your integrated language arts unit
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Ashley and Mary,
ReplyDeleteI loved chapters 7 and 8; especially Chapter 7, which was extremely helpful to me. I loved the analogy at the beginning of chapter 7 where the author describes watching her father at his workbench in the garage as he used all of his tools in order to fix something. The author compares her dad fixing things in the garage with his tools to a writer using the "hypothetical" tools that he/she is equipped with to fix his/her own writing. I also enjoyed that the author gave examples of different ways different writers may prepare for their writing. For example, she said that Elaine Marie Alphin outlined her narrative stories first in order to have all of the story elements out in front of her during writing. Whereas, the author Avi said he does not outline his writing ahead of time because he likes to be surprised as he goes, this way he is discovering what happens along side his readers. I think it is important to remember as educator's that no two students in our classroom are going to prepare for writing in the same way. I think this is why it is so important to model for students the many, varied ways they may want to prepare for writing. For example, as educators I think it is important for us to provide numerous types of graphic organizers at our students fingertips during writing. We should also model how to use each of these organizer types. Then, we need to keep in mind that all students will chose a different tool for their writing. What types of writing tools do you girls offer to your students to plan their writing? My colleagues and I created a hamburger for our students to use when planning their expository writing. The hamburger organizer was modeled after the expository pillar, but seemed to help some of our below grade level writers easier with organization than the pillar organizer.
I loved the idea to try in my own classroom of having my students read from Alphin's book "Creating Characters Kids will Love" the section on recording questions to characters and then responding in your writer's notebook with fictitious answers. This idea will help students to get to know their characters for narrative writing. What was an idea you enjoyed from these chapters that you would like to use in your classrooms?
Lastly, I found the section on having students write for different purposes and across genres to be very important. Sometimes, it is easy to forget to have students to write for purposes and for other genres besides the genre they will be tested on for the CMT's. I tried to have my students write multiple genres, but I know they mostly wrote expository writing in fifth grade for preparation of the CMT's. Chapter 7 describes having your students write for real audiences whenever possible so that they get a sense that their writing is important and for a purpose. For example, when my students wrote compare and contrast essays to a generic cookie company and Oreo cookie we sent their writing to the two cookie companies. The generic company sent back a thank you letter for the input and also a box full of cookies! The students were so excited for this feedback and couldn't wait to do more letter writing to other companies and for other purposes. Have you girls ever had your students write for other purposes or for other genres other than what was being tested on the CAPT or CMT? What was the students response to this writing did you find?
Sincerely,
Heather
Hi Ladies,
ReplyDeleteI enoyed reading chapters 7 and 8. I found that I use some of these ideas in my writer's workshop discussed in chapter 7; like graphic organizers and mentor texts. There were a lot of others that I thought would be good tools to use to inspire more creative writing with my students. Some of these ideas were writing recipes, speeches and interviews.
The character interview idea was a very creative approach and I think my students would enjoy doing it!
I also found the section about writing in different genres and for different purposes was important to remember as educators. I try to provide my students opportunities to write in different genres, but we do spend a lot of time on narrative because it is what they are expected to write on the CMT's. We do provide them with exposure to other genres such as expository and poetry. One poetry lesson that I love doing with my students is using the book Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky. In this book Jack Prelutsky has created this magical land filled with fantastical creatures that are combinations of animals and either food or plants. For example one creature is called a Potatotoad. Prelutsky writes poems describing each creature. After reading this book and identifying the style that Prelutsky uses, students are then given time to create their own Scranimal illustration, and then they create a poem describing their scranimal. The students love this lesson, I then hang them in the hallway to share with the rest of the school.
Heather,
I also loved the analogy of the workbench, where students are given a variety of tools to use with their writing. I agree with your comment about giving students the opportunity to select the tool that works best for them with their writing. I do have to remind myself of this when I introduce students to a new strategy.
There are a few strategies that I use to assist my students in their writing. One of these strategies is the story grammar marker. This is a manipualtive tool used to help students orally create a story map of the important story elements. After orally idenitfying the important story elements, students use the story grammar marker organizer to record the story elements for their story. Then they move into writing their story. Other tools that I use with students are the strategies provided in Empowering Writers. Both the expository and narrative strategies assist students in elaborating and creating specific details in their stories.
I would love to hear more about the hamburger organizer you created. Could you describe what it entails. I loved your compare and contrast writing activity to the cookie companies. What did the oreo company do? What were some of the other companies that they wrote to? Did they get repsonses from them?
Good morning ladies!
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important ideas I took away from the readings this week was that students do not all write and plan the same way, and they need to have the opportunity to discover their own approach to writing. You both mentioned the importance of modeling a variety of ways to plan, organize, and then allowing the students to decide which strategy works best for them. Personally, I usually work best when I have a general outline of what I will be writing about and then I usually just allow my self to free write. With regard to strategies I use in the classroom, I usually try and demonstrate the use of several different graphic organizers throughout the year in order to show my students that there is no "right way" to write. I find that webs can be extremely helpful when trying to organize ideas, that way all of the information is already gathered. I find that if the students already have the information documented somewhere, they can spend more time focusing on their writing rather than trying to think back and remember what they wanted to include.
Another idea presented in this reading that I truly enjoyed was writing for a variety of purposes. I have tried this several times with my juniors and they seem to get more into the assignment. For example, at the end of our unit with A Streetcar Named Desire, I didn't want the students to write another mundane expository essay that discussed the themes found within the play. Instead I gave my students a variety of options. One of the options was to write an apology letter from one character to another character. Another option was to write a rap or poem which described one of the characters in detail. In another assignment I asked the students to pretend that they were a doctor diagnosing one of the characters (Blanche). In this assignment students (the doctor) had to write to the family and explain how they diagnosed Blanche and why. I found that when students are taking on different roles and writing for a variety of purposes they become more engaged with the assignment.
Heather, as Mary said before, I too loved your compare and contrast letter to the cookie companies. That is such a great idea! I would love to try something similar to that with my high school classes. I will have to think of an assignment like that which would be appropriate for high school level students.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI loved your Scranimals idea from the Jack Prelutsky poem. I think it's great that you then have the students write their own scranimal poem based on his poem. I've done something similar in my poetry unit called copycat poems, where the students have to copy something that a poet does in their own writing. The Scranimal idea would be great for me to incorportate here. Also, it allows students to dabble with poetry, which is great for them to write in other genres as we learned from the chapters.
As far as my hamburger planner goes we basically made a giant hamburger. Each condiment/part of the hamburger is a differnt part of an essay. For example: the top bun = thesis, the next layer would be main idea paragraph 1, and so forth. We used all the parts of an expository five paragraph essay format. The visual of the burger seems to help the kids to remember each part better than the pillars. However, it is the same concept.
Sadly, the Oreo company didn't send us any reply or free cookies. Cheap bastards! Anyways, the generic company sending us all of those cookies and the letter was excitement in itself. My students also wrote to children's publishing companies of their choice for any genre of writing that they completed a published draft for. The kicker was that they had to research the company. I gave them a list of packets for starters, but they had to read through the information because some companies only allowed poetry, while others only would taken 500 words or shorter expository writing. They learned about SASE's and all the vocab that went with sending their writing to a publisher. One of my students was published in Stone Soup magazine for her poem entitled "Pumpkin Pie." The whole class was excited, not only the student who was published. It made every student feel they had the potential to be a real writer. It was a great message to the class to keep writing and made my job easy when it was time for writing workshop because everyone wanted to write.
Heather
Excellent discussion and sharing of great ideas. Ashley, love your idea of how you encourage various formats of writing in response to literature.
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