Week 3

Writing:
Elementary School
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 Housekeeping
Due Today:
● Reading Response Week 3 (Please label
Reading Responses by Week)
● Independent Reading Reflection & Link (2
Books from the Genre Overview Book Titles,
Label #1 and #2)
Article of the Week
● This Week: Check Elearning
● Next Week: Check Elearning
Review Writer’s Website Criteria
● Post all your Writer’s Website Links
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Due Next Week

● Reading Response Week 4
 Objectives & Goals:
Overview
● (L,5) Motivation and Engagement (L.17) Composition
● (L.9) Morphology, (L.11) Syntax, (L.12) Vocabulary
Activities:
● Take Notes in Writer’s Website
● Kagan Structure: Think, Pair, Share
● Kagan Structure: Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up
I will also post the links in Elearning.
● Books of the Week (Book Tasting): Narrative
Assessment:
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● Group Work, Class Participation, Community

Engagement
 Students will practice to
encourage and assess literacy

Learning motivation and engagement,

selecting/using research-

Outcomes supported instructional

practices to develop
meaningful interactions with
Motivation and individuals and information
Engagement combined with experiences.
(L.5)
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 Students will select, craft, and assess
instructional methods that develop written

Learning abilities in a variety of motivating and

engaging cotexts, including writing across

Outcomes
the disciplines. Students will explore the
following instructional practices: setting
writing goals, offering/receive/
incorporating feedback, engaging the
Composition writing process and strategies, and studying
(L.17) models and non-models of writing for
a variety of purposes and audiences.
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 So, what are good practices for
fostering motivation to write?
How can teachers make writing
more attractive?
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 Best Practices
Making the Writing
Task Attractive
Authentic text is used to
indicate tasks with a real
expressive or
communicative goal, which
students view as important.
Playing with Genres
Teach students how to
manipulate stories by
changing characters, motives,
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or sequences of episodes to
obtain a new more
amusing/curious ending.
Using Authentic Tasks
Start with a classroom
discussion and analysis of
a procedure that will affect
the entire class and the
teacher (i.e. Classroom
Rules).
Managing Writing
Skills
The complex cognitive
and linguistic activity of
managing skills requires
continuous monitoring
and interventions.
Designing Challenging Tasks
The teacher models the
skills involved when the
tasks are difficult. The
students must feel that the
task is authentic and
important.
Checking Motivation
Teaching students to
manage writing and evaluate
themselves as writers
amounts to self-regulation.
Carried out collaboratively,
this may be enjoyable for
students.
 Providing Meaningful
Best Practices
Opportunities to Write
Design meaningful
experiences and activities
in which writing has a role
and a purpose (importance
of students’ involvement as
well as an exercise).
Evaluating Student Writing
Analyze tasks differently by
the students’ levels of
ability, and self-perceptions
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of competence (importance
of a portfolio).
Providing Opportunities Facilitating the
for Comparing Literacies Management Of
in and Out of School Writing Skills
Propose a good balance Suggest exercises and
between digital and school revision strategies.
writing (importance of the
discussion).
Share Student
Balancing Individual and Writing
Collaborative Writing Establish a routine of
Adopt collaborative and displaying and sharing
individual writing. student writing.
 Motivating Writers
Motivation - students appear to be
engaged in tasks and activities
Unmotivated – students who are able
who try to avoid tasks and activities or
carry them out unwillingly
This attitude includes the value
students give to writing, and the
perception of themselves as
competent in writing. Students receive
this attitude from family and
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school.
Fostering motivation requires
interventions from the teachers leading
students to write more willingly.
Teachers guide their students to view
writing not simply as a school subject,
but as a flexible tool that allows
acquisition of knowledge and the
creation of new knowledge and
meanings.
Writing can be used not only to
communicate information, thoughts,
emotions, and feelings, but also to keep
them.
 Keep in Mind …
Quote from Cultivating Genius:
For educators, it is critically important to
push back on standards and practices that
are not aligned to what students need most.
Before getting literacy skill development
such as decoding, fluency, comprehension,
writing, or any other content-learning
standards, students must authentically
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see themselves in the learning.

 Keep in Mind …
Quote from Cultivating Genius:

When planning writing lessons for students,

don’t forget to ask yourself:
How will this lesson/unit plan help my
students to learn something about
themselves or others?
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 What questions do you have?
Please put
your
questions in
the Chat or
use your
hand.
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 WRITING FOR A PURPOSE:

LET’S TALK ABOUT GENRE!

NARRATIVE WRITING
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 Narrative Writing
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 Narrative Anchor Chart
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 What are Narratives?
Why prioritize them in your classroom?
Narratives represent shared
understanding of the human
experience.
Techniques:
v Dialogue, interior monologue
v Rich sensory detail
v Well structured event sequences
v Highlight/dramatize significant
events
v Fiction or Nonfiction
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v Examine thoughts, beliefs, actions
v Builds capacity for compassion,
social skills, perspective
Most importantly, Narratives humanize; they
promote empathy and insight into the lives of
those whose backgrounds and experiences
may be vastly different from our own.
They encourage self-discovery and the
realization of the individual potential residing
within us. Narratives also foster the
development of vocabulary, morphology,
sentence structure, noun phrases,
description clauses, phases/words, verbs.
We will discuss this in greater detail later in
the course.
s
 Writing
should be
fun!
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 What questions do you have?
Please put
your
questions in
the Chat or
raise your
hand.
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 Using Mini-Lessons
to Teach the Elements of Narrative
Let’s Divide and Conquer! Use your Best Practices Book to read the
appropriate pages of text for your group’s Mini Lesson (pages 84-97) and
discuss the Mini-Lessons that are assigned to you and your group.
Summaries are on the next two slides.
● Choose one group member to share out the details with the class.
● Then, choose another group member to write all member’s names in
the Chat Box to show that your group is finished and ready to share.
All cameras should be on during group discussions and during full class
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discussion. I will pop in at some point to calibrate In-Class Points

for cameras.
 Using Mini-Lessons
to Teach the Elements of Narrative
The following 5 mini-lessons help teach the elements of narrative writing:
v Plot Structure – Scaffold the process by guiding students in analyzing the plot
structure of a model text they are already reading (Freytag Pyramid pg. 85). Once
students can identify structural elements of plot in classroom literature they can
be successful in writing their own fiction story.
v Point of View – Narrative Writing can promote empathy and understanding in the
classroom. Teaching Point of View by reading literature (what is written and how it is
written) is the foundation for students to write from their own point of view.
Teachers can use the following phrases as a graphic organizer to organize their
ideas: Actions, Conflicts, Emotions, Thoughts/Dialogue, Fears, Dreams, (pg. 89).
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v Dialogue – The Rules for Dialogue are best taught through class discussion and
Anchor Charts. Use pg. 91 as a guide to make multiple Anchor Charts for practice.
 Using Mini-Lessons
to Teach the Elements of Narrative
In addition to the Rules of Dialogue, an Anchor Chart depicting Said is Dead would be
very beneficial for students.
v Showing, Not Telling – Sensory/descriptive writing is based on concrete details.
Writers gather information through all five senses and use those details to present
a word picture of a person, place, object, or event. The goal is to choose precise
words to enable the reader to visualize what is being described. One way to begin
developing sensory descriptive language is to create a vocabulary of the senses
word wall in the classroom (pg. 93, i.e. pg. 95), Sensory Bubble Map, pg. 102.
v Theme – A story’s theme is different from its topic or subject. The topic is simply
what it’s about. The theme is the author’s point about a topic. However, to
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identify a theme, sometimes it helps to generate a list of topics or big

ideas in a story.
 Think, Pair, Share
Today you had the opportunity to try a
new teaching strategy from the Kagan
Structures called Think, Pair, Share. Write a
few sentences to tell how you would use this
strategy someday in your own classroom during
writing time.
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Tasting
Book
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 Malik, a Pakistani boy who uses a wheelchair, is excited to
compete in the annual kite-flying festival of Basant. Can his
kite defeat the bully's and make him King of the festival?
Basant is here, with feasts and parties to celebrate the arrival
of spring. But what Malik is looking forward to most is doing
battle from his rooftop with Falcon, the special kite he has
built for speed. Today is Malik's chance to be the best kite
fighter, the king of Basant. In two fierce battles, Malik takes
down the kites flown by the bully next door. Then Malik
moves on, guiding Falcon into leaps, swirls, and dives,
slashing strings and plucking kites from the sky. By the end of
the day, Malik has a big pile of captured kites. He is the king!
But then the bully reappears, trying to take a kite from a girl
in the alley below. With a sudden act of kingly generosity,
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Malik finds the perfect way to help the girl.

 The catchy text exudes confidence as different speakers
energetically proclaim their competence at science and sports,
as well as their creativity and perseverance. Background
characters are of various races, but the stars of every page are
Black, and they explore, soar, soak up information, and make a
difference. The pace slows as the speaker admits he sometimes
is afraid of what others call him but refuses to let those
attitudes define him. The vibrant illustrations reinforce the
energy as groups and individuals share their gifts with the world,
including a cameo by Barack Obama. Remembering their
ancestors and their fathers, and acknowledging their own
strengths, a line of boys gaze at the reader before the book's
final declaration, "I am worthy to be loved." VERDICT Pulsing
rhythms and bright images combine for a worthy and
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timely choice for every collection.

 Chloe and her friends won't play with the
new girl, Maya. Every time Maya tries to
join Chloe and her friends, they reject her.
Eventually Maya stops coming to school.
When Chloe's teacher gives a lesson about
how even small acts of kindness can
change the world, Chloe is stung by the
lost opportunity for friendship, and thinks
about how much better it could have been
if she'd shown a little kindness toward
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Maya.
 Mona’s grandmother, her Sitti, lives in a
small Palestinian village on the other side of
the earth. Once, Mona went to visit her. They
couldn’t speak each other’s language, so they
made up their own. They learned about each
other’s worlds, and they discovered each
other’s secrets. Then it was time for Mona to
go back home, back to the other side of the
earth. But even though there were millions
of miles and millions of people between
them, they remained true neighbors
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forever.
 To view or copy these
presentations, please check
Elearning for Student
Instruction Resources.
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 Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up
Today you had the opportunity to learn a
new teaching strategy from the Kagan
Structures called Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up.
Write how you would use this strategy someday
in your own classroom during writing time.
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 To Sum Up
Narrative writing is a genre used to convey experience,
either real or imagined, and serves many purposes, such as
to inform, to instruct, to entertain, and to persuade. It serves
as a gateway to learning other types of writing and it helps
students to develop audience awareness, organizational
skills, and the ability to select and use specific concrete
details. Prioritizing narrative in the classroom also allows
students to build their confidence, reflect on these
experiences, and bring them into perspective.
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 Use your
education
to make a
difference!
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