This Lesson's Title:

Episodic Writing

an advanced form of list writing that builds on themes

This lesson was created by NNWP Teacher Consultant Kim Polson and then presented at an AT&T-sponsored in-service class for teachers.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out Pictures of Hollis Woods at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

Students will plan a thematically-based story that can be told in a series of related or unrelated episodes.  Each written episode's goal will be to add another perspective or thinking-point about the writer's chosen theme.  When several episodes are written, the writer will sequence them together as one story (told in multiple episodes) about their theme, and they will have a piece of episodic writing for their portfolios. Teachers: click here to read the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is idea development; the writer's biggest goals are a) to use strong and memorable details in each episode and b) center the writing around a pre-determined theme.  The support trait in this assignment is organization; this is a writing assignment based thoroughly on a structure that will be talked about before students write, and thinking about structure before writing always leads to better organizational skills.