Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 18

WHAT?

I knew that Gail Loane’s ‘I’ve got something to say’, Chapter Nine called Character portrait would be my first place to get my planning sorted. Within the chapter, there is a framework for character portraits. I had used this chapter last year when I planned last years Father’s Day writing lesson. I had thoughts about using a child’s piece as the exemplar because this worked well for the ‘Hide and Seek’ writing.

The framework from the chapter is separated into 4 parts so I decided to plan 3 separate lessons for each of the paragraphs. The character description needs to have the first paragraph about the character’s physical description, second on the character’s behaviour (how they act) and the third paragraph, the interactions between character’s through dialogue.

For the first lesson, I handed out the exemplar to the children to glue in their books as usual. I lead the children’s focus to the first paragraph only. The children shared their noticing on how the author has described her dad’s physical features. I used question prompts, “What do we know about her dad? He’s bald. He’s tall because he kneels down to get eye to eye. And he wears glasses. How do we know these things?” The children had not been exposed to show not tell as a writing device so I used a powerpoint presentation.

To connect with their lives, the children faced a buddy knee to knee, and told them what their Grandparent looks like/ their physical appearance - think of 3 and 4  features that make them them. The children were very animated, I used the timer again to give each child time to share what they knew about the Grandparent they wanted to write about. The visualisation and co-constructing success criteria went without a hitch. The children were happy to write.

Part of the success criteria was to describe 3 features of their grandparent. As I roved I prompted the children to imitate the exemplar if their grandparent wears glasses and use what was in the exemplar. Some children successfully used these ideas and were very proud of their success. I used the sticks to pick 5 children to share their writing before lunch and that was the end of that lesson.

The next day, I started the lesson by focussing the children on the next paragraph which described how the author’s dad behaves, what he does. The children analysed the paragraph together and the lesson followed the same direction as before, they discussed with a buddy how their grandparent acts or what they do. I chose one child to share with the class, this worked well and motivated the others in the class to write there and then what their grandparent does.

The Helping Circle to finish the lesson was a buzz with the children wanting the share their writing on how their grandparent acts. Again I used the sticks to randomise the choice of the children who were to share and it was good to see other children using red pen to improve their own work as they heard others share. As part of the Helping circle routine, I asked the children show how they have used the success criteria by pointing to the words they have use precision with, using great punctuation, and using show not tell.

The writing of the third paragraph followed the same routine as before, I also used a powerpoint presentation on using creative dialogue, an another writing device to show not tell. I hooked the children in during the visualisation with my prompts - What does your Grandparent say?- Do they have a favourite saying? Or do they say the same things when they do something to you. Think of 3 and 4  things that they say that makes them them. The success criteria that we constructed together stated that the children needed to

use creative dialogue to show not tell (describe their grandparent), describe 3 or 4 things that my grandparent says and use different sentence starters.

The children worked independently writing the last paragraph and I told them that the author had finished her writing with the statement – ‘Even though my Dad is sometimes strict, I love him.’ I encouraged the children to conclude their own piece on their grandparent using a similar sentiment. This worked well and the children used a range of sentiments to finish their writing. Once the writing was completed, the children were asked to publish their writing using a Google doc and I proofed and posted on Seesaw. I also printed a copy to be laminated and put up on the back wall.

SO WHAT?

After each lesson, I had been marking the children’s work and I noticed that their next step was to use different sentence starters as they had used similar repeatative starts for each sentences like we had in the ‘My Dad’ poems. So I encouraged the children to notice the different sentence starters iin the exemplar during the analysis stage and then the children wanted this to be part of their success criteria.

What I have noticed recently is that the children are responding to writing a do-able amount and that they now understand what a paragraph is – a group of similar ideas. This has helped with the buy-in.

NOW WHAT?

All-in-all I am pretty proud of the development of my writers and how my pedagogy has changed this year. I do have a few questions on how to mark this writing when I am deliberately setting up the children for success. Do I need to use our writing rubric to know where to next or speak to Verity on how to do this?

Also I feel that my Year 3 children are doing so much better at taking on the pointers and making changes to their writing than the Year 4s. I need to get some data around this and see if my hunches are true and what efforts I need to make so that Year 4s progess as well as they should.

“Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was ‘terrible,’ describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was ‘delightful’; make us say ‘delightful’ when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, ‘Please, will you do my job for me?'” —C.S. Lewis

References

Loane, G., & Muir, S. A. (2010). I've got something to say: leading young writers to authorship. Aries Publishing Company.

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 17

WHAT?

For the PaCT assessment in writing, one of the aspects is called creating texts to influence others. This aspect has 5 signposts on the progressions  and these become more complex, the signposts are weighted on NZC as well. The signpost that I chose to focus on this term due my assessment data was the 3rd sign post.

This is explanation of that signpost - Even when they are novice writers, students create texts in order to challenge their audience to do something or think about something differently. They write to argue a point or persuade someone to change their mind.

Expert writers know how to effectively achieve these purposes. They choose appropriate structures and features, and control the language they use in order to make the maximum impact on their audience.

One of the illustrations is called Grandpa 2 – is an invitation from a boy to his Grandfather to come to a helper’s morning tea because he has helped with the planting of the garden. This became the basis of my next writing lesson. I copied and pasted the invite (corrected spelling and typos), with the plan and this formed the exemplar for the children. I handed out 2 pieces of paper and encouraged the children to glue them in their books side by side so that they could see how the plan helps scaffold the letter. During the analysis I lead the children to notice the planning and the letter setting out. I used question prompts - Why has Sam written the letter? The children highlighted in the letter how Sam has used the plan to help him scaffold his ideas. I questioned the class about the use of paragraphs and how the plan helped with the structure of the letter.

To connect this writing lesson to the children’s own life, I told the children that we would be sending out invites for our Grandparent/Whanau Day and that I would be sending them out via Seesaw messaging. I introduce the idea of persuading or convincing someone at this point. The children spoke with a buddy what points we could persuade a special person to come to our class on this special day. They brainstormed the WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY for the day.

The children then closed their eyes and I spoke -  “I want you to think about your Grandparents… What would they want to know about Grandparents Day? What sorts of things would they like to do here at school in the classroom? Do they know about using iPads what sorts of things do think they would find interesting? How can we persuade them to buy our recycled paper?” The class constructed the success criteria using What, When, Where, and Why, the reasons for coming, choosing the best words and including a closing - review reasons why you want them to come.

The children first were asked to create a plan as shown in the exemplar and this was the first component of the writing lesson and all the children had to write the first day. I haven’t exposed the children to many writing planners as I use graphic organisers for reading and during topic research. The lesson was successful and the next day we began crafting our invites for Grandparents/Whanau Day. One child struggled as both sets of Grandparents were away and he wanted them to come and knew that it was impossible as well. Some children wrote directly onto a Google doc and shared it with me and then I was able to send the message out. One set of Grandparents replied and I quick show the class the power of persuasion, this also helped to motivate the rest of the class.

I was away for Grandparents/Whanau Day, but by all accounts it was a very successful day and at one time there were 25 adults roaming the class and working with the children.

SO WHAT?

The children were able to use the plan to help scaffold their writing successfully although some of the invitations lacked substance. I didn’t send out as many messages as I hoped from the children directly to family and whanau. I did send an all families post out myself informing them of the upcoming event as I know I have Grandparents linked to the children’s portfolios.

The plan helped the children scaffold their writing into paragraphs but I’m not too sure that they realise the purpose of paragraphs and how to write them effectively.

NOW WHAT?

I need to find a way to teach the writing of paragraphs and help the children understand their purpose. Hopefully I can build on their enthusiasm for their grandparents and maybe writing character description of them might be a way to do that. I know that Gail Loane’s “I’ve got something to say” book may the place to go for inspiration and another way to utilise the ‘seed’ notebooks again.

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."
― John Steinbeck

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 16

WHAT?

I decided that I need to have purpose for the notebooks so with Father’s Day looming, I planned for my next writing lesson, the children to write another poem to describe their own fathers or father figure in their lives. In May, we had written a poem for Mother’s Day, I revisited the exemplar and was amazed at the level of knowledge from the class.

The children identified the similes and metaphors used to describe and could explain why the author has used those particular writing devices to describe. The highlighters were used to highlight their noticing. They shared with a buddy what they found interesting, we created a list of metaphors that portrayed their dad, and we checked out the structure of the poem.

Armed with their notebooks, now called seed notebooks, the children shared their jottings (seeds) from the night before. The children had taken the books home to write with their parents ideas about their dad. With a buddy, they discussed what Dads do that Mums don’t – because we wanted these poems to be a step up from their ‘Mum’ poems. On the whiteboard, I collated their ideas in a list and we co-constructed a metaphoric sentence together.

During the visualisation part of the lesson, the children closed their eyes and I lead them to create that mini movie in their heads. I used question prompts - What can you compare your dad to? What skills/traits does he have that mum does have? How does he make you feel when something good happens? Or when something bad happens? The children knew what they wanted to write. As a class we created the success criteria – using pronouns or My Dad to begin each sentence, using metaphors, using precision with word choice and make interesting comparisons.

Once the children began writing, I roved and worked with my less abled writers. The children had also decided as a class that they would need to write at least 6 sentences for their poem and all of the children were writing and sharing ideas to help each other. I was asked to spell words and prompted some to use metaphors not similes this time as many had for their ‘Mum’ poem. One child said, “I’ve written 9 sentences about my Dad!” Her enthusiasm was infectious and there was a flurry of pens to capture ideas and make as many sentences as she had.

The ‘Dad’ poems are more advanced that their previous bio poems and the children published them onto Google Docs, I proofed and showed 2 experts how to make an origami shirt that became the envelope for their poem. The children had strict instructions not to share these with their Dads until Sunday as that was actually Father’s Day. I also made the children publish their poem to Seesaw which I deliberately approved their post on Sunday too.

SO WHAT?

This lesson was introduced on Thursday before the Father’s Day so I knew that there would be added pressure considering the ‘Mum’ poems had taken a long stretched out week and then I was still pushing some to finish. This time that didn’t happen, all the poems were printed, origami shirts made and a post up to Seesaw all done before morning tea on the Friday. I was pleasantly surprised and gave the children time to choose what they wanted to do in the block after morning tea.

I was really pleased with the efforts the children are now making with their word choice and how their metaphoric sentences really described their Dads. Another thing to mention is that the children are willing to help each other and share their success, which I believe is due to the culture in the class that comes from the ‘Helping Circle’ part of our writing lessons.

NOW WHAT?

My class writes better when writing for a purpose, so I need to capture events, moments and times that connect with them. Looking at my assessment and where to next, I have noticed that I need to encourage my children to write to persuade and with Grandparents/ Whanau day coming up, it might just be a way to manage 2 ideas for the ‘price’ of one.

"Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences."
--Sylvia Plath

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 15

WHAT?

Our next PD session with Verity was called “Finding the Significance and Note booking”, Verity previously had given us a notebook and front loaded us on how to encourage the children to record in notebooks snippets or seeds from their lives that they ‘could’ use later on in their own writing if they could not connect to the exemplar/text.

I hadn’t introduced the idea of using notebooks with my class and had moved this idea to the ‘back burner’ so to speak.  Verity explained the purpose of the notebooks to us and said that she had had to start again and establish the use of notebooks again in her class. She reiterated that when we read there are 2 responses to text – an emotional response/reaction and an intellectual response (understanding the choices made by the author). As educators, we want our children to respond to the text and know what type of response it is.

As the PD progressed, I knew that there were a number of phrases I wanted to establish in my class. One was ‘seeds’ – Verity spoke with passion about how the notebook was a place to store ‘seeds’ of inspiration so that later the children could grow them through their writing to create sincerity. The other was making connections – encourage the children to find connections within the text but if they can’t help them find connections in their own lives and their own sparks of inspiration stored in their notebooks.

I madly scribbled on the notes that accompanied the PD, as I had been inspired to try to get my children writing and using their notebooks. So over the weekend, I bought enough notebooks for the whole class and readied myself for my next writing lesson. I made a real fuss and ‘sold’ the idea of the notebooks to the class – we spent our writing lesson on choosing stickers, coverseal and labels to decorate and personalise our notebooks. I also made and effort to record anything that sparked inspiration in my own notebook.

The next day, I used a powerpoint presentation to show the significance in a range of poems and text that Verity had given us as well as poems from Literacy online that were at Level 2 NZC. I played with the text and use pictures and photographs that I thought would connect to my class. The children were quick to write their own seeds and I was very encouraging.

SO WHAT?

In Chapter Three of Gail Loane’s “I’ve got something to say”, she discusses that the students need to be taught how to make meaningful entries and it is important that we need to consciously demonstrate ‘authorly behaviour’ and that we should be reaching for our notebooks when any possible occasion arises. She also mentions that we need to plan to teach strategies for meaningful jottings and keep encouraging these so that in time, habits will form.

NOW WHAT?

I need to familiarise myself again with this chapter as it make more sense as I am now trying to establish this skill for my children. I have used the notebooks to get the children to record information/ seeds about their Dads to help them write about their dad for Father’s Day.

“We want our young people to grow up knowing that writing is an important and deeply satisfying life skill, one that helps them make more sense of themselves and their world, one that helps them to communicate effectively. Much more than a skill, writing is the creativity of each child making itself known through the role of author.” – Gail Loane

References

Loane, G., & Muir, S. A. (2010). I've got something to say: leading young writers to authorship. Aries Publishing Company.