This Lesson's Title:
Counting Up/Down Stories
slowing down for details
This lesson was created by NNWP Teacher Consultant Corbett Harrison. Visit Corbett's website for writing teachers by clicking here.
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T he intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is Wringer by Jerry Spinelli. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from chapter 5 of the book.
Check out Wringer 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): Get a copy of Wringer by Jerry Spinelli. Read aloud chapter 5, which centers around the ninth birthday of the book's main character. The chapter's conclusion is a definite highlight of this novel. As part of his initiation into nine-hood, Palmer receives "the treatment" from an older boy at the park. Nine knuckle punches are meticulously planted on the birthday boy's bare arm, much to the delight of his watching friends. Between the punches, counted aloud for the reader's pleasure, wonderful details are shared by the author. Talk with your students about how these details between the counting add so much to an event that could go by rather quickly, but Spinelli chooses to slow down the world for this momentous moment of childhood. And it makes the event so much more memorable because it goes by so slowly. Make sure you also talk to your students about the wonderful character and setting details Spinelli uses through the entire chapter...and novel.
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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. The groups will certainly talk about the idea development , because of the post-it note that has been embedded on each model. You might prompt your students to talk about each model's organization as well.
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Step three (thinking and pre-writing): The interactive choices on the student instruction page might help your students to think of many possibilities on which to base their Counting Up/Down stories. But...so could a great class discussion!
Have your students brainstorm incidents in real life when people or a person count up or count down together. The last ten seconds of a really close sports game might come up. A parent warning a child to behave by counting out loud to five might come up. See how many incidents your students can brainstorm. Tell them they will be creating their own short story that centers around someone counting up or counting down out loud. The counting will be the body of their stories, and they will then have to create an introduction to the story's body, and a conclusion that follows it nicely.
Share the graphic organizer below on the overhead. Once students have an idea for their own counting up or counting down stories, ask them to create their own graphic organizer (modeled after the one on the overhead) on their own piece of paper. Have them talk and share their graphic organizers with you (and with each other) before they start their stories' rough drafts.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Learn more about Jerry Spinelli's books
by clicking here!
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