This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Kaycee Goman at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.
The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi & Ron Barrett. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.
Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this book at the county library.
A note for teachers users: These lessons are posted so that you may borrow ideas from them, but our intention in providing this resource is not to give teachers a word-for-word script to follow. Please, use this lesson's big ideas but adapt everything else. And adapt it recklessly; that's how you become an authentic writing teacher.
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :
Step one (sharing the published model):Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett, is the amusing story of the town Chewandswallow. This is no ordinary town with any ordinary weather. Three times a day the weather in this tiny town turns extraordinary. At lunch frankfurters may blow in from the northwest with mustard clouds and drizzles of soda. Judi Barrett creatively describes the intriguing weather in this small town throughout the story.
Celebrate the powerful words (especially the adjectives) as you read the book aloud with your students.
Step two (introducing 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 organization, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you might also have your students talk about the word choice in the writing too.
WritingFix Safely Publishes Students from Around the World! In 2008, we first began accepting students samples from teachers anywhere who use this lesson. Hundreds of new published students now go up at our site annually!
We're currently looking for student samples for other grade levels for this lesson! Help us obtain some from your students, and we'll send you a free resource for your classroom! Visit this lesson's student samples pagefor details.
Step three (thinking and pre-writing): Use the attached graphic organizer to have students brainstorm adjectives and food possibilities before they begin writing.
Using the graphic organizer, all students should be able to come up with a three-part description. For students who can go further, challenge them to add a dessert course! Or an introductory paragraph that introduces the reader to why the crazy weather is happening! Or both!
4th grade and special education teacher, Rivka Danziger, shared this graphic organizer that she created to complement this lesson.
Share Original Graphic Organizers (for Pre-Writing)
from Your Teaching Toolbox.
We share graphic organizers with our peers, we find them in books, and we think we should also be able to find tried-and-true ones online at WritingFix. This year, if you create an original graphic organizer (or adapt one of ours) when you teach this page's lesson, and post it, we might just end up publishing it directly here at WritingFix, and we might just send you a free print resource from the NNWP for being generous.
Original graphic organizers for specific lessons, like this one, can be submitted as an attachment atthis link. Look for the "Reply to this Box" beneath the post. To be able to post, you will need to be a member of our freeWriting Lesson of the Month Network.
Step four (revising with specific trait language): Two tools for revision are provided below. You can use one or both, depending on how much time you have to spend on this assignment.
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.
Share Original Revision Techniques or
Adaptations from Your Toolbox.
Inspired by Barry Lane's Reviser's Toolbox, the WritingFix website encourages its teacher users to adapt our lessons, especially the tools of revision we have posted here. If you create an original revision tool (or adapt one of ours) when you teach this page's lesson, and post it, we might just end up publishing it directly here at WritingFix, and we might just send you a free print resource from the NNWP for being generous.
Original revision ideas from teacher users of WritingFix can be submitted through copy/paste or as an attachment at this link. Look for the "Reply to this Box" beneath the post. To be able to post, you will need to be a member of our free Writing Lesson of the Month Network.
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): The goal of most lessons posted at WritingFix is that students end up with a piece of writing they like, and that their writing was taken through all steps of the writing process. After revising, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block. The writing started with this lesson might become even more polished for final placement in the portfolio, or the big ideas being written about here might transform into a completely different piece of writing. Most likely, your students will enjoy creating an illustration for their writing as they ready to place final drafts in their portfolios.
Interested in publishing student work on-line?You might earn a free classroom resource from the NNWP! We invite teachers to teach this lesson completely, then share up to three of their students' best revised and edited samples at our ning's Publish Student Writers group. Fifty teachers a year who do this will receive a complimentary copy of one of the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Print Guides.
To submit student samples for this page's lesson, click here. You won't be able to post unless you are a verified member of this site's free-to-use Writing Lesson of the Month ning.
Learn more about author Judi Barrett by clicking here.
