I want to first start off this week’s blog by posting an inspirational writer’s notebook passage that I had this week after continuing to read Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. This “adult” published writer’s notebook could easily serve as a complimentary mentor text for an educator both for their own writing and that of their students. In this week's text, Rosenthal defined how being labeled “small” has affected her in her life. From this, I wrote a list of scenarios of advantages and disadvantages of being short has on my life. See below the comparisons!
In continuing discussion on guiding students with launching their writer’s notebook with a gradual release of responsibility approach and mentor text examples, this week I also want to talk about the importance of student conversations about their writing!
One of the first mentor texts I believe students would benefit from is from their own teacher. I feel like a lot of teachers believe in having to buy and get so many different children's books for every lesson to provide examples, but sometimes the best and most inspirational comes from their own teachers. Who wouldn't want to hear a story about their teacher's childhood? It is so important to provide personal accounts of leading students in how a teacher models their writing experience in a writer’s notebook. Lucy Calkins in her book A Guide to the Writing Workshop, scripts scenarios for teachers to adapt for how to launch a writer’s notebook in a classroom. She discusses the importance of building students enthusiasm for writing in their notebooks, teaching specific “teaching point strategies”, having students engage in a supported practice of a strategy, and then how to direct their independent writing time using a strategy they learned in a minilesson. The key take away from her minilessons was to be purposeful in the words and expectations for teaching a minilesson. The three components of a minilesson:
The bold components of the writer’s workshop are the ones that I feel that I personally have reflected on needing to do better on in a classroom. The number one thing teachers can do to make sure any lesson goes smoothly is being prepared themselves. It seems easy to come up with a special person or special place and how to write about it, but to show students how it is easy for you is difficult. They are developing writer’s that look to teachers as models in making them better. Teachers need to plan purposeful pauses in wondering what to write next, spelling errors, grammar errors, and more because it provides students an example that the teacher isn't perfect. It demonstrates that we too as teachers are practicing writers that sometimes get stuck or make mistakes.
Along with this, during guided time, the teacher needs to make sure students are on the right track. It is during this time that teachers can gauge if their teacher modeling minilesson was beneficial or needs additional examples and explanations. It is not beneficial for students to go straight from teacher modeling to independent time! The importance of this guided time is to have teacher-student and/or student-student interaction to check in on writing ideas that make independent time less stressful for those that need more help. One of the strategies from Mentor Texts by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli is having students turn and talk. By doing this, students can self check themselves and support each others ideas.
And finally, I think the most important thing during independent time is teachers conferring with students! I have been in so many internships and even in my own personal experience, teachers go from modeling straight to independent time and don’t look at their notebooks until the end of the day. Sometimes even in my elementary school, the teachers didn't even look at our writer's notebook and only read about our drafts and revisions. To make it a point that their planning of ideas in their notebook matter makes it so that students feel there is a purpose to their writer's notebook and stories. It also gives them additional confidence in their ability and acceptance that their stories get even their teacher excited about wanting to read. Teachers need to reach out! Just to acknowledge their ideas or story as being amazing can get them to write more and to continue with their ideas they are hesitant about. Conferring doesn't mean to pull one student at a time during this time and have a 10-15 minute conversation about their ideas and planning. This conferring is more of a check in on students that is brief. It gives a teacher a time to make a student's idea feel accepted and also lends teachers information about their own students! It's making more connections and trust with them. (Calkins, pp. 5-8)
“If you can give your children just one thing right now, it must be this: your unconditional faith that each one has a story to tell and your rapt attention to these stories” (Calkins, p. 9)
Classroom Conversations
Who knew having students talk about their ideas or share their writing was so important! I feel like teachers are so focused on the monotonous step by step of: draft, revise, publish, draft, revise, publish and so on and so on. Those steps to a draft could incorporate students talking to each other about their use of writer’s notebook strategies or ideas! They could branch off of each other. Have you ever given a group of fourth graders 5 minutes to talk about anything and you go around and listen and see that one student’s idea prompts another and another. I have! It is a great opportunity for them to develop a relationship revolved around writing. I think in many classrooms these days, the assessment of writing is daunting and makes writing seem more independent all the time when it shouldn't be. This sometimes I believe makes hesitant writers feel more discouraged and to have a peer in their class be someone to support them aside from a teacher is beneficial.
According to Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli (2017), “Partnering gives all students a chance to be heard and encourages 100 percent participation. In addition, when students share ideas, they learn to appreciate the rich diversity of thinking in the writing community” (p. 63).
In my future classroom, I am intrigued in using writing partners that will rotate throughout the year for students to have. It will be someone who can hold them accountable for writing, be someone to go to for help if they are stuck, someone to have for supporting ideas and writing, and more! I love this incorporation in a writing workshop time. To introduce the concept of having writing partners or writing tables depending on my classroom layout, teachers could read Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon, to value that anyone’s story should be acknowledged. By doing this before writing workshops begin, it also sets the stage for students that anyone’s writing should be encouraged no matter the length, topic, point, or point of view they are trying to portray in their writing. I believe by doing this it will decrease the anxiety of the sharing component of writing. Publishing work allows students opportunities to put their best writing out and to be excited about wanting to share their stories, poems, essays, etc. By making it a classroom expectation in the beginning, even for drafting ideas in writer's notebooks, it sets the stage that all writer's are welcomed in the classroom!
Mentor Texts
This week I continued to read Brown Girl Dreaming (part two) by Jacqueline Woodson. As I continued to read, I purposefully read this week to find poems that I believe could stand out on its own. Though her entire book that is written in verse is dynamic altogether when read all at once, her individual poems bring depth in her emotions and accounts of her life. One specific poem that stood out to me was “ghost” (p 92). This poem in itself brought a message that to me brought emotion to the Civil Rights Movement. How she strongly wrote how the past isn’t forgotten with segregation in a poetic way was moving. I read this poem several times and each time it brought emotions to know what African Americans at this time had to go through just to have a desegregated bathroom. They risked their jobs, safety, and even their life to fight for equality. This poem to me just encompassed the progression in a powerful way.
Another mentor text read this week was Shortcut by Donald Crews. This short picture book describes the “small moment” where a group of children decide to take a shortcut by walking on a train track. However, this decision ended up becoming one that seemed to have scared them because a train came right by them, causing them to say that they never want to take the shortcut again. It obviously teaches a lesson that taking a shortcut doesn’t always lead to good results. This mentor text could easily be included in a writer’s workshop about personal narratives. It is a descriptive and engaging text that retells a small moment in detail. Having an example of a small moment is important in classrooms because sometimes students have such large events that they want to tell every single moment about rather than one specific part in more detail. Personally in my student teaching, students would always want to read me stories they wrote for their language arts teacher. Though I loved hearing all the stories, they would hand be 4-5 pages front and back of a story that told of their entire day at the ski slopes or girl scout camping trip. Like I said, I loved reading their story and telling them I loved it, but it showed me the importance of getting to the main point of a small moment. From reading aloud this book to students, it could serve as an additional example of how the author wrote the story by narrowing his topic and why he wrote it.
After reading this book, a teacher could then model a personal narrative writing session as a minilesson or use a previous student work sample as a model for students. By doing this, students can see the thinking aloud from a teacher about how to draft a personal narrative story.
Here is a blog post by Two Writing Teachers about the importance and key tips of using mentor texts: https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/08/06/mentor-texts-writing-workshop-fundamentals/
From last week's post, a strategy to help students explore their writing "territories" is to make a heart map of someone special, special place, or a special object! By doing this, students can use these big ideas to narrow down specific memories they want to write about. Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli specifically discuss the use of an inverted triangle to help students narrow their topic down. They also suggested that teachers make these and laminate them so that students can continuously use them throughout the year which I love!
This week I also had the opportunity to write a "Where I'm From" poem. Poetry has always been something that I struggle with especially with a template, so it took me a long time to begin writing. However, as soon as I started to think about home it became easier to write. Below is my draft of my poem that is written in my writer's notebook:
Where I'm From
I am from afghan blankets
from Vaseline and Neverdull
I am from the gray house with aqua shutters
(landscaped green, cracked cement, and cut grass)
I am from the Christmas cactus
the Ivory Halo Dogwood
who grew for 28 years and still growing
I'm from the Portillo's roast beef sandwiches and type A personality
from Mike and Debbie
and Colyn
I'm from the constant life lessons and loud talkers
From not comparing myself to others
and always trying my best
I'm from confirmed Catholic
pray everyday love and trust God.
I'm from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, many more
and perogies and kolachkes
From the paper towel airplane that my 6 year old dad threw
in his childhood home that caught the kitchen on fire
and still haunts him
the Grandpa who tried his new life jacket
in the neighborhood pool
countless heavy picture books
separated between my mom's sisters
I am from being one of two blondes
in the entire family
from developing suburbs
that is a city
and the journey home is almost unrecognizable.
References
Calkins, L.M. (2006). A guide to the writing workshop, grades 3-5. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Dormfan, L. & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor texts teaching writing through children's literature K-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Rosenthal, A. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York: Dutton.