WHAT?
After much searching through the School Journals I found an
exemplar I wished to use as a stimulus for the first piece of authorship for
the new term. I was wanting a new way of recording their holidays without the
usual ‘in the holiday’ writing that has been so many times before that the
children are well and truly over it.
I found this poem, memoir that was written by Selina Powell
callled the Leap. It had a listing sentence and Teacher Support Material as
well to help me scaffold the direction I wanted to lead my students. The poem
resonanted with me because it discussed being glad she took a chance and
achieved something she hadn’t done before.
Using the planning scaffold I worked on my plan, using my
new found knowledge on the ideals from the PD for authorship as well as the
suggested ideas from the TSM. I trolled through my Gail Lone Book to see what
she could offer in the way of direction needed. Most of my attention was on the
analysis part and I hoped to get the children to write a poem about an event
from their own holiday.
As part of the process, I wrote my own poem on an event
during my holidays and how that playing bridge (cards) is fun with friends but
I still have heaps to learn. I used my scaffolding ideas and the ideas from
each of the stanzas. I was quite proud of my efforts and pleased that I was
breaking out of the mould so to speak.
The visualisation part of the plan
requires you to create a bank of questions that help to lead the students to be
able to picture their own experience in their heads before writing. I used - recall
a memory from your holidays - something that you really remember, something you
are proud of
When did it happen?Who was there? What can you see/ taste/feel?
The last part of the plan was to create the success criteria to guide
the children to write a piece that describes an event, or thing they remember
from their holidays.
SO WHAT?
I was really proud of this plan and decided to share in with
my writing mentor teacher and get some feed back and feed forward. I send her
my plan, the exemplar and my own piece called ‘Bridge’.
Her first response was ‘Brilliant. Thanks Sam, this looks great. And the went on to share
a couple of quotes from Lucy Calkins to help to provoke/frame some
thinking:
"For years, we
have known the importance of writing with “telling detail,” with “revealing
specifics.” But when writers begin with a topic (My Birthday Party) and then
try to supply readers with telling details (chocolate cake with orange flowers
on it or pink balloons) what they are, in fact, doing is working backwards.
Telling details are by definition those that bristled with such significance
for us that, as we wrote, they led us to bigger insights. For reasons I don’t
entirely understand, when we record the bits of life we hear and see and think
about and remember, when we linger with these bits long enough to let one
remind us of another, the details are entirely different from those we include
when we begin with a generic topic (such as My Sister’s Bedroom) and then try
to flesh out the topic with details.
When Alexis wrote in her notebook about how every night she and her sister lie in bed listening to their radio waiting until the lights in the nearby building go off, and then check the time to see if the lights are going off earlier or later than the day before, she has captured a detail that she never would have produced had she begun instead by trying to write about the fun times she and her sister have together. I suspect that when we put onto paper the pieces of our lives that for some mysterious reason matter to us, we can capture both those moments and the energy around them". - Lucy Calkins
When Alexis wrote in her notebook about how every night she and her sister lie in bed listening to their radio waiting until the lights in the nearby building go off, and then check the time to see if the lights are going off earlier or later than the day before, she has captured a detail that she never would have produced had she begun instead by trying to write about the fun times she and her sister have together. I suspect that when we put onto paper the pieces of our lives that for some mysterious reason matter to us, we can capture both those moments and the energy around them". - Lucy Calkins
Essentially, if we are
looking at a spider diagram, I think about it as if we put the tiny thing they
have connected with in the middle e,g, a smell, a teacup, lipstick on mum's
teeth etc and then complete the other details around it to frame/grow it we get
genuine connection to the topic. If, in contrast, we put the event in the
centre e,g, the movies, the beach, playing with my brother etc we get a more
pedestrian, flat result. Reinforcing this with students will help not only with
quality but also engagement (especially with our reluctant writers :)
NOW WHAT?
This
did indeed provide more for me to think about. Initially I wanted to scream and
shout but after a few hours and reflecting what she was trying to tell me I
released that I needed to think and assist the children beyond the actual piece
they were writing and make them connect to the their experience in order to
achieve the results I am looking for.
I
susequently added an extra part where the children could record their thoughts
and scaffold them so that they would make sense when they came to write. Fingers
crossed.
Teach the writer, not the
writing.
― Lucy Calkins
References
Calkins, L. M., & Harwayne, S. (1991). Living between the Lines. Heinemann Educational Books, Inc., 361 Hanover Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801.
Loane, G., & Muir, S. A. (2010). I've got something to say: leading young writers to authorship. Aries Publishing Company.
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