This lesson was created by NNWP Teacher Consultant Corbett Harrison. Check out all of Corbett's on-line lessons by clicking here.
The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. 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): In Owl Moon, author Jane Yolan shows off what she does best. Yolan writes beautiful descriptions that sound so rhythmic. While it's hard to pinpoint exactly where the rhythm comes from, some of her techniques can certainly be analyzed. Yolen, for example, varies back and forth between longer sentences and shorter sentence. She also, for the most part, begins her sentences with different words. Share this book aloud and enjoy the masterful descriptions of a wintery owl hunt shared by father and daughter. On a second read, ask your students to talk about where they think they heard rhythm in the story. They'll sense that it's there, but probably won't b able to explain how it was created.
Have one of the book's pages typed on an overhead or a handout. Ask students to look closely at the beginnings of Yolen's sentences...for the most part, they start with different words. Ask students to look closely at how many words are in Yolen's sentences...for the most part, Yolen varies between longer and shorter sentences. Explain that these are two techniques for adding sentence fluency that this writing lesson will stress.
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 sentence fluency, because of the discussion prompt that has been embedded on each model. You might prompt your students to talk about each model's organization as well.
After showing them the teacher sample about the chihuahua, have students imagine a scene where a different dog is running in a different location. Working in pairs, have students create a descriptive paragraph.
And now student writers should be more able to compose, using sentence fluency, as individuals.
Use the interactive button and word game on the student instruction page to explore a variety of short, non-descript sentences to inspire a paragraph. If you don't have the ability to have all kids on-line at the same time or the ability to project the Internet in your classroom, borrow four or five of the choices and write them on your overhead or white board. Students can probably come up with a few original examples once they see a model of what a short, non-descript sentence looks and sounds like.
Once students have a sentence to inspire a paragraph, use the pre-writing worksheet below to help them create a variety of longer and shorter sentences. Encourage
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 Jane Yolen's books
by clicking here!
