Our New Writing Teacher

Today I introduced the class to our new writing teacher.  Her name...Cynthia Rylant.  Cynthia Rylant has written over a hundred books for children.  She has won the Newbery Medal and the Newbery Honor.  To put it simply, she is an amazing author.  Who better to teach our class about writing.

Unfortunately she cannot physically be with us in the room.  So we are going to do the next best thing, fill our room with her words.  As we read her books we are going to try and learn three things about her writing:  What topics/subjects does she write about in her books, how does she structure her books, and how does she craft her writing.

We started off by reading one of my favorite of her books Long Night Moon.

We realized that she was writing about the different types of moon, we noticed how she structured her writing going month by month through the year, and we saw how she used a list sentence followed by a simple sentence to describe the moon.

Then the class went out and tried to write like Cynthia.  I was blown away by some of the writing.  One of my favorites was a story about someones week.  They borrowed Cynthia's structure of going month by month but instead went day by day describing their week.  The story was a perfect example of how a writer can stand on the shoulders of other writers.  I love this idea of "standing on the shoulders of other writers."  I heard another teacher use this phrase this summer in a class at Miami.  

I want our students to realize that by looking at the best writing of other authors we can experiment with what we find.  For the next two weeks we are going to look closely at our new teacher's writing.  Then we are going to experiment using her structure and her craft.  I hope by the end of the unit the class will be writing projects that give us a glimpse of what they learned from Cynthia.  

Book Reviews

Today we looked at some book reviews.  I had found four book reviews that I really liked.  All the book reviews were about different books.  You can find these book reviews in the writer's notebook.  I asked the class to tell me what they noticed about the book reviews.  I thought both classes did an amazing job of noticing what the authors had done to create their review.

We made a poster of what the class noticed about reviews.  Here is the poster we made:

1. The book reviews had a hook to catch the reader's attention.
2. The book review shared the title and author of the book.  This was done after the hook and then a few of the authors repeated the title at the end of the review.
3. The book review told you a bit about the book.  The review made the book sound exciting but did not spoil the book.
4. The book review made a challenge to read the book or ended with a cliffhanger.
5. We also noticed some extra things in just a few of the book reviews.  Many of the book reviews used questions.  We also saw a few of the book reviews talk about the genre of the book

We are going to use this list to help us write our first book review about The One and Only Ivan.  

I love this idea of looking at mentor texts to help us learn about different types of writing.  When I am learning about anything, I like to consult an expert.  I do not know how many videos I have watched about fixing things around my house.  I do not consider this cheating...I consider it learning.  Unfortunately I think some students think it might be cheating to look at other writers to find ideas.  I want to change that perception.  As we write these book reviews I am hoping that the students see how we use mentor texts to help make our writing stronger.

Publishing

This week we are working on publishing our first writing projects.  The students are busy making their last minute changes to their final drafts and checking their spelling and adding illustrations.  It is fun to run around the room and have conferences with the students and see the choices that they are making about their writing.  I cannot wait to see the final products on Friday.

We also started to talk about the main dish projects from our menu boards.  Students were deciding between a mosaic about Charlotte's Web or a Venn Diagram comparing Charlotte's Web and The One and Only Ivan or an obituary for Stella and Charlotte.  The class now has a rubric for the projects that are planning to complete by next Friday.  If you have any questions about these projects, feel free to get in touch with me.

We continued to talk about questioning today.  I wanted to show the students how I ask questions before I read, during my reading, and after my reading.  I showed students how I do this with the book The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.

I really loved this book.  I saw so many connections with other Chris Van Allsburg books.  Then the students practiced asking questions before they read and during their reading and after their reading as we looked at an article from Time For Kids.  

Cannot believe that it is already Wednesday.

Questioning

We started another thinking strategy today.  I showed the students a tool that I use in the kitchen quite frequently a garlic press.

 As a class we started to make a list of questions that we had about the object.  Here are some of the question that we asked:  Who invented the object?  Why does it have holes on the bottom?  When was it made?  Is it an antique?

Then we did a question blitz about pumpkins.  The students had about five minutes to write down as many questions as they could about pumpkins.  I loved some of the questions...Why do we carve pumpkins at Halloween?  What is the most pumpkin seeds ever in a pumpkin?  Are pumpkins a fruit?  Why are pumpkins orange?  Then we picked two questions that the class could research.  The two questions that we picked were...What is the world record largest pumpkin?  Why do we carve pumpkins at Halloween?

Optional homework is just what it sounds like, it is optional.  If the students want to try and figure out the answer to one or both of these questions, then they can try it for homework.  If they do not want to figure out the questions, then they do not need to complete the assignment.

Our new thinking strategy is obviously the strategy of questioning.  I love teaching this strategy because to me it is one of the most important strategies.  I also think that sometimes students think that asking questions makes them look "dumb."  I am hoping this week we can change this perception.  I want students to realize that by asking questions before they read, during their reading and after their reading they can help themselves become better readers.  I also want them to realize that asking questions shows a type of curiosity that can help them find answers about the world.

Students also got rubrics for the appetizer projects.  There are three appetizer projects and the students need to pick one appetizer to complete.  The three projects include making a new book cover for The One and Only Ivan and Charlotte's Web, writing a six word summary of both books, or writing an "I am Who I Am" poem about Charlotte and Wilbur.  You can find these rubrics in the reading folder.  I also gave an example of my Ivan "I am Who I Am" poem and a six word summary I wrote for Finding Nemo.  I am hoping these examples will help the students complete these projects.

Hope you are having a great week.

A Big Week

I am sorry about the brief absence from posting.

This week is going to be a big week.  On Friday we finished up Charlotte's Web.  I forgot how much I loved that book.  We will finish up The One and Only Ivan tomorrow.  I have really enjoyed reading these two books in two very different ways.

Today I introduced the menu board that we are going to complete to wrap up these two books.  A menu board is a group of nine projects that the students can pick from to show their thinking.  Each student will be responsible for completing one appetizer project and one main dish project.  There are also some dessert projects that are optional.  Students will receive extra credit for completing these projects.

I asked the students to show you the menu board tonight.  I was hoping that the students could come prepared tomorrow knowing which projects they would like to complete.  The projects are going to be due on October 18th.  The class will have class time to work on the projects but they can also work on the projects at home.  Tomorrow I will start giving the students rubrics to show them what we are looking for in each projects.  These rubrics plus the menu board can be found in the reading folder.  I am hoping to get these rubrics and the menu board posted tomorrow night.

Today we also passed back the first drafts the students had turned in a week ago.  I was able to write a page of comments for each student to think about as they complete their final draft.  You can find these comments along with the first draft in the writing folder.  The final draft of the project is going to be due this Friday.  Hopefully the students can use the comments to help them improve their final drafts.  Again the students will have some time to work on the writing projects at school but they are more than welcome to work on their final drafts at home.

I loved reading and making comments on the first drafts.  We have so many different projects.  We have poems and stories and a magazine article and an ABC baseball book and so much more.  I love getting to read the student's words.  After the students turn in their first projects, we will be having a writing celebration.  Our writing celebrations allow the students to share the work with everyone in the class and even other classes that we might invite.  These celebrations will hopefully persuade the students to do their best on their final draft as they will get a chance to share their writing with a large audience.

Hope you all had a nice start to your week.

Sentence Smack Down

Today we got to play a little Sentence Smack Down.  Sentence Smack Down is one of my favorite lessons of the year.  In class we have been talking about what makes a sentence.  The students knew that sentences needed a capital and a period but I wanted them to know a bit more.  We started to look at two-word sentences.  In fact the students right now our hunting for two-word sentences in the books they are reading.

When we started to look at these two word sentences we noticed that the two-word sentences had a subject and a verb.  That is the whole idea of Sentence Smack Down.  For our first round of Sentence Smack Down we looked at simple sentences from The One and Only Ivan.  The groups had to find the subject (which we have found usually comes at the beginning of a sentence) and they also had to find the verb (which we have found usually comes right after the subject).  After the groups found these parts of the sentence they copied them onto construction paper.

This is where the fun begins.  We dance over to our Sentence Smack Down Arena and groups share their subject and predicate as they smack them onto the Sentence Smack Down mat.  We are going to keep looking at simple sentences and how authors create them.  I hope that by looking at these sentences the class will truly understand what makes a sentence.  Then we can start to look at some more complex types of sentence.  We are also going to keep looking at these two-word sentences that authors use.  I am hoping we can figure out why authors use these two-word sentences.  Then students can experiment using a two-word sentence in their writing (I have actually seen a few already show up today).

So I hope you ask the students about Sentence Smack Down.  Please do not ask about my dancing it is not good.  Tomorrow is a big day for us in Charlotte's Web...I have to go prepare myself.  Hope you are having a great week.

Visualizations

Today we continued to talk about visualizations.  I wanted the students to understand that when a reader visualizes they not only picture what they are reading but they also try to visualize using their other senses.  They can smell, taste, feel, and hear certain parts of the book.

We read a book called In November by Cynthia Rylant and talked about all of the different things that we could hear or smell or taste.  Then when we read Charlotte's Web we looked for places where we could visualize using our five senses.

I also had the class practice writing using their five senses.  Today we wrote about a fair.  I found a picture of a fair and the class used the picture to help them write.  I was so impressed with the descriptions the students were able to create about the fair.  You can find these descriptions in their writer's notebook.

Speaking of visualizations I am going to keep it short tonight because this is what I am visualizing:

Go Reds!!