This lesson was created for WritingFix after being proposed by Northern Nevada teacher Penny Sanchez at anSBC-sponsored inservice class.
The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. 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.
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :
Step one (sharing the published model): Teachers should first read aloud How I Became a Pirate, enjoying both the language and enthusiasm of the story. When reading it a second time, teachers should stress what the author has done particularly well: in this case, author Melinda Long introduces the life of pirates through a strong opening sentence that catches the reader’s interest. She also uses great details to illustrate both the pros and cons of a pirate’s life during the boy's imaginative adventure on a real pirate ship. Have your students list as many pros and cons of being a pirate they can remember after hearing the story a second time. Tell your students, "Exploring both pros and cons of a job, following a great introduction, is a great organized structure for a story."
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 organization, because of the post-it note that has been embedded on each model. You might prompt your students to talk about each model's sentence fluency as well.
Step three (thinking and pre-writing): The interactive choices on this lesson's student instruction page above will inspire your students to think of interesting jobs that might require some research from them to do to write to this assignment. It will also give students some subordinating conjunctions to put on their graphic organizers, but this assignment works just as well away from the computer; you might have your students research an interesting job from a novel or story you're reading, or from a historical era you're studying.
For this assignment, students will do some research, and they will purposely seek pros and cons associated with the job they're studying. One paragraph will talk about their job's pros, and a second paragraph will talk about their job's cons. They will toy with subordinating conjunctions while pre-writing and drafting, and their introduction will certainly use one. Encourage students to write a powerful introductory sentence. Encourage students to write a conclusion that links back to the idea they choose for their introductions.
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.
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 Melinda Long's books
by clicking here!
