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Reading Strategies ~
Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey
Vocabulary
Write each of the following vocabulary words on a piece of chart
paper and post them around the room. Put students in groups. Have
them rotate from word to word, giving them about 5 minutes at each
word station to add something new to the chart paper that helps
explain what the word means. Some examples might include synonyms,
antonyms, drawings, part of speech, etc. You might want to provide
resources such as a laptop, dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. at each
station. Once every group has added something to each chart have
each group share what they added.
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Rafter
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Raucous
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Trillium
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Marsh
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Cattails
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Killdeers
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Barren
Making Connections
Text to Self
Discuss why Eli loves “the place.” Brainstorm al the places that
the students in your class love. Have them close their eyes and
visualize that place. Have each child brainstorm words that
describe a specific place they love. Develop those words into a
descriptive paragraph that they then read to a partner or to the
class allowing the audience to guess the place being described.
Figurative Language
The author of All the Places You Love frequently uses
figurative language to describe parts of the places Eli loves.
Discuss the definition of a simile and of a metaphor and why an
author might use this type of language. Have students listen to the
story and record similes and metaphors from the story.
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The river falling down over rocks
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Crows in the dirt that swaggered like pirates
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Where trout flashed like jewels in the sunlight
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Cattails stood like gourds, and killdeers called
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And wild turkeys left footprints for us to find, like messages
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Leather harnesses hang like paintings against old wood
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Where ducklings follow their mother like tiny tumbles of leaves
Have students choose one of the similes or metaphors and illustrate
the literal meaning. Students can also follow up by creating
similes or metaphors that describe a content related topic. (ex.
Kindergarten-the day and night sky; First Grade-life in
Canada; Second Grade-celestial bodies; Third Grade-various
habitats; Fourth Grade-stars; Earth, & moon; Fifth Grade-the
scene at Ellis Island as immigrants arrived in the United States for
the first time).
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Writing Strategies ~ 6+1
Traits of Writing by Ruth Culham
Focus Trait: WORD CHOICE
Support Trait (Secondary Trait): IDEAS
This book follows the trait of Word Choice. The word choice trait
uses descriptive vocabulary to convey meaning and create pictures in
your mind. This book and these writing ideas aim to further the use
of using rich, colorful vocabulary, and ideas to add personal tone
and expression to the topic.
To begin with…
1. Hook:
Have the children close their eyes and imagine a place that is their
favorite and special, place to be. Share ideas and make a list of
these ideas on a chart.
2. Show the book jacket. Have students predict what the book will
be about.
3. Read the book aloud and discuss. After reading the story
have each student partner with someone sitting close to them. Have
partners discuss their special place. Have the following question
prompts written on a chart for partners to look at as they are
sharing about their special place: Where is your favorite place?,
Describe your favorite place, What do you do there?, How do you feel
when you’re there?, Why is it your favorite place? Give students a
set amount of time and then switch roles.
Introduce writing topic/Rough Draft, Writing Process…
1.
Have your students think about their favorite place
that they shared with a partner yesterday. Tell them it is okay to
change their idea of their favorite place if they want to.
2.
Tell the children that they are going to write about their favorite
place. (PASS
OUT GRAPHIC ORGANIZER).
Have them fill in the graphic organizer with as many ideas as they
can think of. Begin the rough draft.
After the first draft of the writing assignment is done, ask
students to switch papers with a partner. The partner is to circle 5
words that he thinks could be stronger. The student must find
stronger words to replace these when he does his final copy.
Continue with the writing process.
After the stories are complete…
Extra activity choices:
#1- Have the students choose a partner. One partner at a time
will read their story out loud while the other partner tries to
illustrate their special place. Then, the partners change roles.
The students will visually get to see if their partner can capture
in pictures what they were trying to describe.
OR
#2- Have the students illustrate their own stories by painting,
or drawing. Post all of the pictures on a board. Have each student
read their story out loud and have the rest of the class guess which
picture it describes. Put stories and pictures together in a class
book entitled “Our Favorite Places.”
#3- Have the students write to complete
this phrase about their special place, “Where else can ________?”
Students should use as many descriptive words as they can.
#4- Include parents in the fun by having them write a paragraph
about their favorite place. Then children can use both paragraphs
to compare and contrast the favorite places. They could also
compare and contrast the use of traits in each paragraph.
3.
Idea for R.A.F.T.S writing (VOICE):
(Pass
out RAFT sheet- for prewriting) Discuss the R.A.F.T.
assignment: Role; Choose
whether you want to be the duckling, turtle, river, hilltop, or
Grandfather’s barn, Audience;
Sylvie, the new baby sister, Format;
a friendly letter, Topic/Strong
Verbs; Persuade the new sister Sylvie that you could be her
favorite place. Begin with the rough draft, and continue with the
writing process.
(R.A.F.T.S. graphic organizer)
Focus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Prepositional
Phrases:
This Lesson's Title:
Special Days
to Love
improving sentences with thoughtful prepositional phrase
This
lesson idea was inspired by NNWP
Teacher Consultant Kim Polson.
Found at writingfix.com |
The ideal "mentor text" that can
be used when
teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book All the
Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan. Before writing,
students should listen to and discuss the writing style of
this book's author.
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Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources:
Pre-step (before sharing the published model):
Have students write to this writing prompt: "Write about a
special day from your past. You might have been alone; you
might have been with family or friends. You might have been
home, but you might have been somewhere else. Write five or
six sentences that help me understand what happened on your
special day."
After everyone has a draft, ask students to count the number of
words in their sentences and write the numbers in the margin
next to each sentence. Then, have your students circle the
first word in every sentence.
Explain that good sentence fluency in writing often means that
the writer has sentences of different lengths, and that good
sentence fluency has sentences that start with different
words. Today, you'll be teaching your students to think
about these two qualities as they prepare to revise their
paragraphs about their special days.
But first,
pull out this lesson's recommended text: All the
Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan, which is a
story about many special days and a very special place.
Step one
(sharing the published model): Patricia MacLachlan’s story, All
the Places to Love, is a story designed to bring you
back to the places and times in life that you love.
Her use of prepositional phrases takes you to Eli’s favorite
places. In her sentences, she varies the placement of the
prepositional phrases (from beginning, middle or end),
creating excellent sentence variety.
One effective way of teaching students
to read fluently is by pointing out that sentences should be
read in chunks. Prepositional phrases--one of the most
obvious chunks to spot in reading--point out the
when and
where of sentences.
MacLachlan has done an amazing job at
structuring her writing in a way that almost forces the
reader to say it in a fluent, meaningful way. I encourage
teachers to take this story/poem and write in on chart
paper. Search the poem--whole class--to spot the
prepositional phrases. Next, have the students go to their
personal readers, chapter books, and picture books and go on
a prepositional phrase hunt. Have each student share
one. Discuss how these phrases, in and of themselves, can
be used as a writing prompt; a longer sentence can be
composed just with a good prepositional phrase's
inspiration. Doing this will help link the fluent reading
strategy to sentence fluency in their writing.
Read All The Places To Love to
your class. Have them pay special attention to Patricia’s
use of prepositional phrases to create fluency in her
writing. Emphasize this sentence flow in your reading of
the book. Encourage them to also use their favorite phrases
from the class's prepositional phrase hunt.
Tell your students they will be revising their special day
paragraphs, using interesting and meaningful prepositional
phrases.
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Step two
(introducing models of writing):
Prepare a paragraph to share with the class describing
your special day. In a whole-group, read it aloud and ask
the class to respond to your writing focusing on sentence
fluency, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you
might prompt your students to talk about other traits as
well. |
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Step three
(thinking and pre-writing):
Re-read just the first sentence of MacLachlan's story
again. Have students look at their rough draft paragraphs,
listen to the sentence again, then re-write their opening
sentence so it sounds more like MacLachlan's.
Then ask your students to revise each sentence with a
thoughtful prepositional phrase. If your students are
struggling to think up prepositional phrases, encourage them
to use the interactive buttons on the
student instruction page.
Using WritingFix's
list of prepositional phrases might help
them brainstorm original prepositional phrases. While they
are creating original prepositional phrases, be sure to
encourage them to use memorable adjectives and nouns.
Remind students that
prepositional phrases can be at the beginning, middle, or
end of sentences. Stress that the idea during revision is
not to have tons of prepositional phrases, but to select and
use highly memorable ones throughout the paragraph.
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Step four
(revising with specific trait language):
Two tools for revision are provided below, and students
should be encouraged--after they have created a second
draft--to consider a third draft.
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.
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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. |
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