As I read e339 blogs this week, I learned more about each of you and your "process" in selecting and researching the topic for the multigenre research paper. It was another form of "inside sentences" that Hale talked about in Crafting Writers. I experienced another advantage of blogging for students AND teachers!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Shelly Blake-Plock is a high school teacher and authors the blog Teach Paperless. He said, "Before I went paperless and used blogs to get information from them, I would only see students' work if they wrote an essay or turned in a quiz or test. Now I'm seeing what they're working on all the time..."
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Help!
The Indiana Partnership for Young Writers is a wonderful resource for pre-service and practicing teachers of writing. Ms. Mary Wordsmith is an interactive blog that you might want to visit.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Writing Conferences
When you spend time with a student in a writing conference, you not only encourage them as a writer but you get to know them as a unique individual. Two videos about writing conferences highlight this important relationship.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Show Not Tell
Hale talks about noticing craft in literature and in week 5 resources there is a list of genre and craft lessons to help you find appropriate text. Using picture books to teach specific craft is a powerful and endless resource! As you begin noticing craft in literature you can build your own storehouse of "craft lessons".
A favorite book, The Leaving Morning,by Angela Johnson illustrates "Show Not Tell" in text and structure. After an initial reading to enjoy the book, I read the first page.
THE LEAVING happened on a soupy, misty morning, when you could hear the street sweeper. Sssshhhshsh...
The students and I know that this story starts out in the morning, but when? EARLY! How do we know?
- It's EARLY when the street sweeper comes by, before all the cars come out!
- It's quiet early in the morning.
- Sometimes it is foggy; soupy, misty are words that describe what fog looks like.
- AND the street sweeper has lights on because it is dark. That's early! (The picture is text too!)
To show that saying goodbye took a long time, the author stretches the goodbyes out over several pages with just a few words on each page.
Even young children can "see" craft and then be taught to try out that craft in their own writing.
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