This Lesson's Title:

Leads for a Most
Embarrassing Moment

exploring leads in your writers notebook before writing a story

This lesson was created by Northern Nevada teacher Barbara Cuitino during an
AT & T-sponsored inservice class for teachers.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially chapter 1
of the book.

Check out The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 at Amazon.com.

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

Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :

Step one (sharing the published model):  Read from chapter one of The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, and thoroughly enjoy Byron’s embarrassing moment about his lips sticking to the frozen mirror. Have the students discuss how Byron must have felt and how they would feel if they were in the same predicament.

Tell students they will be doing two things today: 1) exploring seven techniques they might consider using when writing their own stories, after 2) applying those seven techniques to Byron's embarrassing story.

Share this seven leads handout, which showcases seven ways to start a story. Each method is followed by a question about what form this technique would take if it was the lead to Byron's embarrassing story. Have students--in groups or pairs--create seven leads for Byron's story. Have them share their lead ideas with other groups or whole class.

Have students write this title on one of their blank pages in their writers notebooks: "Seven ways to write a lead." In the center of the page, have them draw a comic-strip-sized box. Tell them they will be eventually drawing a picture that represents one of their most-embarrassing moments, surrounding the picture with seven different ways they might begin the story they've made a cartoon for.

Eventually, they will be writing an entire story about their most embarrassing moment, but for today they will just be thinking about leads.

Step two (introducing student models of writing):  In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson; these models are whole stories inspired by students' writers notebook pages.  The groups will certainly talk about the organization, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you might also have your students talk about the idea development in the writing too.

• We're looking for student samples for all grade levels for this prompt!  Help us get some, and we'll send you a free resource for your classroom!  Contact us at publish@writingfix.com for details.

Step three (thinking, talking, and pre-writing): Before asking students to make a cartoon for their own embarrassing moment, you might want to tell them about one your own embarrassing moments, and then sketching it on the overhead or whiteboard. We suggest you have available this handout of emotional faces for students to use in their cartoons.

Have students talk with neighbors about times they were embarrassed. The interactive choice button on the Student Instructions Page might help them start talking, if they get off to a slow start. Have students tell partners one, two, or more embarrassing stories, then decide on the one story that might make the best narrative story.

Have them make a cartoon scene from the story they choose in their writers notebooks.

Then...have them revisit the seven leads handout and carefully create a possible lead for their story that uses all seven techniques. Before they surround their cartoon with their seven possible leads, make sure they have a partner look them over, checking for spelling and punctuation.

Once their notebook page is done, have them show it to fellow students. Have them ask, "Which lead do you think would work best for my story?"

Eventually, you want to have your students write out their stories, using their favorite lead, for a piece of writing they will take through the whole writing process.

Barbara Cuitino--this lesson's author--provides you with this great story-planning sheet (print it on legal-sized paper) to help students plan for a detail-filled story that plans to use a variety of transitions.

When students are ready to create an actual rough draft, have them use this rough drafting worksheet, which comes with a checklist to remind them to be organized.

Step four (revising with specific trait language):   To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts.  Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5."   Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings.  For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.

• Sheet of 6 Organization Post-It Notes
• Sheet of 6 Idea Development Post-It Notes

Step five (editing for conventions):  After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor.   If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers.  With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it.  The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.

Step six (publishing for the portfolio):   When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block.  Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here.  Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.

Interested in publishing student work on-line?  We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers.  This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.

Learn more about author Christopher Paul Curtis by clicking here.