How do I teach students how to draft an entry in the writer's notebook?
First, model to students how to find a strong topic. Then, model the steps of what to do after finding a topic:
Think about it
Speak it
Write it
As you model, remember to think aloud as your write, emphasize that mistakes are okay in the writing process, and do not spend time on spelling/grammar, just focus on getting your ideas down. "Your goal is to help students generate fluency in writing through their notebook entries and begin to SEE THEMSELVES AS WRITERS". Below are the steps to modeling how to draft a notebook entry for students:
Choose a type of entry that students can identify with and easily see themselves as writers in your notebook entry. The type of entry that is ACCESSIBLE for students. [Examples: animals, food, family]
Draft in front of them for 10-15 minutes...no more. You can come back to it the next day.
Think aloud as you draft and make decisions. Say to students, "I'm going to be thinking out loud today as I write so that when you write, you'll know what kind of thinking writers do. Also, remember that your entry will be different from mine because your life experiences are different. We will have different entries when you all are finished!”
(Frye, 2019, slide 2).
Where I'm From
by George Ella Lyon
I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch. (Black, glistening, it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush the Dutch elm whose long-gone limbs I remember as if they were my own.
I'm from fudge and eyeglasses, from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down! I'm from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb and ten verses I can say myself.
I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch, fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box spilling old pictures, a sift of lost faces to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments-- snapped before I budded -- leaf-fall from the family tree.
My 'Where I'm From' Poem:
Notebook entry about 'Something Beautiful': How do I model this lesson?
Create a class concept map of “Beautiful” or “Beauty”. What does it mean?
Read the book, "Something Beautiful" or "Last Stop on Market Street" stopping along the way to comment on the different expressions of something beautiful…
Ask students how they may be like CJ’s nana and find the beautiful where others may not think to look? OR ask students, about the little girl’s something beautiful? How did she find it? OR ask students, how do we know how Sandra Cisneros feels about her mother? How does she show us through her words?
Model how to draft an entry in front of students using one of your 'something beautiful' topics (steps to draft an entry are listed above).
Ask students to make a list of the things they consider their something beautiful in their lives. Then, choose ONE from the list that they want to write about.
Next, ask students to turn and talk to their partners and share their list. As students are discussing, ask them to discuss the ONE something beautiful that they will write about. Remind them of the definition in the book: I think it means: something that when you have it, your heart is happy!
Invite students to draft a notebook entry about ONE something beautiful…
Ask for volunteers to share their entries.
(Frye, 2019, slide 15)
My 'something beautiful' entry:
Brown Girl Dreaming:
This week we continued reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. This section of the book talked about the author's life living in South Carolina, missing her mother, and her family preparing to move back up north to New York. One page that really resonated with me was page 46-47. Here, Jacqueline is discussing how her mother is struggling with her childhood home not feeling like home anymore. "Everyone else has gone away. And now coming back home isn't really coming back home at all" (Woodson, 2014, pg. 47). I think this page really resonated with me because since going to college, I feel like this at times. I think this is a common feeling among most college kids. Leaving home to go to college is hard because when you go back home, it just feels different. When I go home every once in a while, it still feels comfortable and relaxing, however, my whole family is not there anymore so it doesn't feel normal. Both of my sisters are away at school, leaving only my parents and brother home. I think this is why I love the holidays so much because everyone is home under one roof and it feels normal and like home again. I think a lot of people can relate to this change and unfamiliarity that comes with growing up.
Another section of the book that stood out to me was on page 72 titled "South Carolina at war". This story and the story after, discuss how African Americans were still not being treated fairly years after they were freed from slavery. People young and old were still marching and protesting for equal treatment. On page 72 it says "We can't go to downtown Greenville without seeing the teenagers walking into stores, sitting where brown people still aren't allowed to sit and getting carried out, their bodies limp, their faces calm" (Woodson, 2014). As I was reading this, I immediately began to think of the Greensboro sit-in that took place in 1960, almost 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Growing up in Greensboro, the Greensboro Four was a big event that we learned about in school, taking field trips to the museum almost every year. Hearing Jacqueline talk about the training that African Americans went through to prepare themselves for the mistreatment they would receive for standing up for what they believe in, was gut-wrenching. Jacqueline writes:
"They learn how to change the South without violence, how to not be moved by the evil actions of others, how to walk slowly but with deliberate steps. How to sit at counters and be cured at without cursing back, have food and drinks poured over them without standing up and hurting someone. Even the teenagers get trained to sit tall, not cry, swallow back fear" (Woodson, 2014, pg. 76).
Thinking about the events that took place at the Woolworth's lunch counter, I wonder how long these four A&T students trained for this? Did they feel ready? I cannot imagine the feelings, the fear, and the uncertainty they must have felt going into this. I think the quote on page 73 sums up the actions of the Greensboro Four and all the other protestors and resistors in history: "But be ready to die, my grandfather says, for what is right. Be ready to die, my grandfather says, for everything you believe in" (Woodson, 2014). Thinking about this quote, the civil rights movement, and the great respect I have for African Americans during this movement, I feel so encouraged to live by her grandfather's words and hope I would have the courage to do it.
As I was going to Google to look up an image of the Greensboro sit-in, I realized that the Google homepage was a picture commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in which was really neat!
Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature:
Chapter three of Mentor Texts explored writing territories, discovering the author's point, and using conversations to stimulate writing ideas. The chapter begins by introducing writing territories. Writing territories are general and broad topics that can then be used to identify specific topics in them to write about (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, pg. 52). For example, my writing territory may be holidays because that is a broad topic that I have many memories under. When I begin writing, I could choose topics relating to Easter, Christmas, Fourth of July, Memorial Day, etc. to then write about a specific memory or event that happened on my chosen holiday. To introduce writing territories to students, the chapter mentions that the teacher should first start a list of territories to share with students and then have them brainstorm more ideas. Students can then make their own list of territories in their writer's notebook for future reference (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, pg. 53-54). When teaching writing territories and narrowing them down into specific topics to write about, the inverted triangle model is a great resource shown below.
Another helpful tip the authors discuss is the importance of helping students understand the author's point for writing a story so that when students begin writing, they too will think about their point in writing a specific story. This is when reading mentor texts is very beneficial for students. Having students explore mentor texts and try to pick out the meaning or purpose for writing, will help them further their writing topics. Some great mentor texts for discovering the purpose are: When I was Five by Arthur Howard, Bear and Squirrel Are Friends by Deb Pilutti, Red is Best by Kathy Stinson, Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, pg. 61).
Lastly, the authors discuss the importance of conversations during writing. Having students 'turn and talk', discussion partners, and peer conferences are powerful tools that allow students to "ask questions, share mentor texts, exchange ideas, and form partnerships" (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, pg. 63). Students are able to orally talk through their ideas, gain insight from others, and may even inspire writing ideas in their peers. Overall, a good saying to live by when writing with students is to "think about it--talk about it--write about it" (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, pg. 64).
Aside from the inverted triangle, chapter three also provided other ideas on how to generate writing topics:
Neighborhood map
Hand map
Heart map
"I Wonder" is a children's book that I discovered in class this week that can be used as a mentor text. This book would be a wonderful mentor text for having students write about 'wonders or what ifs'. It is so creative and intriguing that I had to get my own copy!
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal:
This week while reading Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book, I was inspired by the piece "defining word" (Rosenthal, 2016, pg. 106). In this book, Rosenthal uses the word "small" to describe herself, listing things she can/has to do because she is not as tall. In my writer's notebook, I decided to use the defining word: leader and list all the people throughout history that I consider leaders.
Leader:
Barack Obama
Ellen DeGeneres
Martin Luther King Jr.
Gandhi
Greta Thunberg
Michael Jordan
Malala Yousafzai
Oprah Winfrey
*Jesus*
Helen Keller
Nelson Mandela
Rosa Parks
Martin Luther
Frederick Douglass
Ruby Bridges
Greensboro Four
Ashton Kutcher
Meghan Markle & Prince Harry
Emma Watson
Shortcut
by Donald Crews
This book is about a group of kids who decide to take a shortcut, walking along the train tracks to get home. As they are walking, they hear the train coming and have to quickly figure out what to do. Should they run ahead or turn around and run back to the road? This book takes the reader through many emotions, uses descriptive words, and onomatopoeias like 'whoo whoo' and 'klackity klackity'. I love how the author visually uses these words. For instance, as the train is getting closer, 'whoo whoo' gets bigger and bigger on each page, until suddenly, it stretches across the whole page as the train is passing them (Crews, 1992, pg. 8). I think the author's use of font and word size make this book even more appealing.
After researching the author, I realized that this is a true story that happened to Donald Crews when he was a boy at his grandma's house. This book could be a great mentor text when talking about personal narratives.
[Author: Donald Crews]
Books that influenced Donald Crews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KMJKMjmpZs
Biography & books by Donald Crews: https://www.kidsreads.com/authors/donald-crews
'Launching the Writing Workshop' article
This article mentioned how to start the writing workshop, how to generate writing topics, and how to conference with students. The article started off with an important quote: "You'll teach children to take small, true stories of their lives and tell those stories in ways that strike a chord in their readers" (Calkins, 2006, pg. 1). Everyone has important stories to tell so it is our job as teachers, to teach students how to tell these stories. Below is a mini-lesson that the article suggests using to launch entries and stories in the writer's notebook.
Mini-lesson for launching the writing workshop:
Build children's identities as writers by being excited over the stories they tell.
Build children's enthusiasm for writing and the writers workshop. Explain the importance of the writer's notebook and what writer's workshop consists of.
Name the teaching point: generating ideas for writing personal narratives. Example #1: "I think if a person that matters to me and then I list small moments I have had with that person. Then I sketch the memory and writer the story of that one time" (Calkins, 2006, pg. 3). Example #2: Think of a place that matters to me and list memories you have there (Calkins, 2006, pg. 17).
Teach students how a writer may use the writing strategy & walk through step by step instructions on how to use it. (1. Choose a person to write about that means a lot to you/someone you have a lot of memories with. 2. Write down clear memories of this person on chart paper making a list. 3. Choose a memory you want to write about, envision it, and tell the story. )
Model how to think through a story, making sketches along the way to help you as a writer, remember the details. Once the story becomes clear, use your sketches to write out the story in words.
Remind students when writers would use this strategy and how.
Let students try this strategy out with their own stories. Walk them through the process. Remember to first remind students that they are not telling the whole story, but zooming into a smaller piece/detail of the story to tell.
Then, students will share their story with a peer.
Highlight one student's story with the class to use as another model.
State your teaching point, remind students of the strategy they learned, and how they can come back to this strategy when they are stuck in the future.
(Calkins, 2006, pg. 2-8)
What do I do when students are writing independently or having a difficult time thinking of a story?
When students are writing, you as the teacher, should be roaming the classroom checking in with students. You should be engaged in table conferences where you are not focused on one particular student or the students who typically struggle, rather, you are offering support to the whole room. Remember as you check in, be enthusiastic about students' stories, ask questions to further develop their writing, and do not worry about revising, rather, have students continue writing and getting multiple stories down on paper (Calkins, 2006, pg. 10).
If students are having a difficult time thinking of a story, create a time during the day for storytelling. During this time, you can tell stories from your life and students can share stories as well (Calkins, 2006, pg. 11).This will spark writing topics in students and give them something to write about!
Other entries from my writer's notebook this week:
Useful links:
Jacqueline Woodson reading "Tobacco" from Brown Girl Dreaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aSrtS7j6Ns
When I'm From poem by George Ella Lyon:
Student Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyijNF3d58E
Student Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGb4oiUqlhA
Student Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agV4DDjAhmc
Something Beautiful read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma_DzzeNuVE
Matt de la Peña reading Last Stop on Market Street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4irkUDbaIA
Shortcut:
Class retelling Shortcut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_loP6W008A
Sources:
Calkins, L. M. (2006). A guide to the writing workshop, grades 3-5. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann
Crews, D. (1992) Shortcut. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.
Donald Crews. Photo of Author Donald Crews. Reprinted from Kirkus, by Joshunda Sanders, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/donald-
Dorfman, L.R. & Cappelli, R. (2017) Mentor texts teaching writing through children's
literature, K-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Frye, B. (2019). Drafting Entries in the Writer’s Notebook: Heart Maps, Something
Beautiful, and Mentor Texts. [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from
Rosenthal, A. K. (2016) Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, NY: Dutton.
Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books.