A Writing Only Focus Was Separated As Part of the Unit for the Purpose of the Original
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A Writing only focus was separated as part of the unit for the purpose of the original creator shared it with writing co-teachers. The layout is the same as the unit. This is just a tool to look at only the writing portion of the unit.
Day 1: Writing: Perspectives- In our story Nine, Ten it switches perspectives between the characters. Students will need instruction on perspectives to better scaffold for the story. Using the video Silent, A Short Film, students will watch and write from the perspective of the old man and then of the young girl. Leading to a discussion on what would be different based on the different characters perspectives but still the same based on the storyline. Watch the video a couple times to get the plot enough for students to write it. Compare the differences and similarities in perspective together as a class using a double bubble map. Students will be given time to write from both perspectives. The stories shouldn’t take much time to write. It is not important that the stories are completed just that students have written including some of the similarities and differences. When students are finished writing, ask for some share outs and check off the similarities and differences, that was come up together as a class, that they hit in their story.
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/dolby/silent-video.html Day 2: Writing: Mentor Text- Have students refer back to their paper copy of the introduction and their lenses paper, discuss together what students noticed during their writing lense of the introduction, have students share their ideas on things that the author did specific to the writing. Students are going to attempt to use some of the pieces that they notice to write their own introduction. Create a class goal that matches both something that can be a learned strategy from the introduction as well as uses the learning target. Before students write, teacher will model the attempt at using the mentor text and goal to write by choosing an adversity from their own life and writing an intro. After modeling, students will take the adversity that they explained to their partner the day prior and write using the introduction as a mentor to write their own introduction. They will strive to reach the goal that was set as a class.
Goal examples; I can write a narrative introduction that adds five sentences of descriptive detail about the day. I can write a narrative introduction that builds up to a suspenseful statement. Day 3 and Writing: 4: Students will continue working on their introduction. They will have time to write on their own because they most likely did not finish on day two. The teacher should announce different areas that they see students modeling from the introduction of Nine, Ten. These announcements will help other students focus on more that they could be doing with their intro and will make them strive to be noticed as well. Comments from teacher could revolve around suspense, details, stretching out the moment, etc. When they are finished writing this piece, they will type their introduction into the Seesaw app. Day 5: Writing: Students have posted their writing on the app Seesaw. Teacher will model giving feedback using the author’s introduction in Nine, Ten. Feedback should be focused around the goal that was made as a class. Feedback should be Did their partner reach the goal? Does it need more work?, a strength, and where there is room for improvement. Scaffold-Teacher will provide students with sentence frames to better help them give feedback. The sentence structures can be “I really like ______” and “I wonder if______” or adapted to the class/student that needs them.
Model of Think Aloud, if the class goal was about adding descriptive details to create suspense, to the author the teacher could say “I really like that Nora adds suspense to her story by saying ‘but that hasn’t happened yet’” then “I wonder if Nora took out the part about nine eleven would that have added even more suspense”. Teacher will also model deciding if the author met the class goal or how close they were, providing evidence of where the goal was met or not.
Have students share out other ideas for feedback to the author, Nora. Instruct them to be specific about what they really like and how she is meeting the class goal. They could offer a wondering that they think might better help the author strive to reach the goal further or better reach the Narrative Learning Target. Day 6: Writing: Mentor text- Using the first chapter as a guide, go back and reread using a writer’s lense, viewing the text as a writer instead of a reader. What did this author do that we can mimic in our own writing? Discussing with students how a small moment in an airport turned into a whole chapter. What did the author do in order to create that? What moments did they stretch out in order to describe these minutes in the airport. Students will create a goal with their partner, again pulling from ideas from the mentor text and our narrative learning target. They will try to apply the goal they set with their partner as they go to write their own story. Students will have two options, the can write using the same adversity they did their introduction or they can go back to their circle map and choose another adversity. Before they begin writing, the teacher will model going back to his/her circle map and choosing another adversity. The teacher will demonstrate using a flow map to show the progress of their story. Students will begin with a flow map as well. They will write a flash draft of their own story while working toward the goal they set with their partner.
After giving them some time to write have students meet with the same partner. They will focus on the goal they created together and give feedback to their partner if they met the goal or if they have more work to do in order to meet the goal.
Scaffold- The partner can use the sentence starters for the strength and room for improvement. “I really like______” and “I wonder if ______”. Day 7: Writing: Gallery walk- In chapter 3, pages 32-33, has dialogue that can be used as an exemplar of how to write dialogue into a narrative. Post different sections of the dialogue around the room that allow for good mentoring. Teacher could also pull from dialogue exemplars from chapter 1 and 2. Students walk around the room and write notices of what the author has done with the dialogue. Students will need to come to the consensus that dialogue must be separated as paragraphs as new characters speak, as well as, that they need to use many synonyms for the word said so the writing is not repetitive.
Students will create their own goal for narrative writing that they want to work on. Teacher will review the narrative learning target. Students will create their goal by thinking about what it is that they struggle with and that they really want to push themselves to work on. Students will write their goal on a sticky note and they will place it in their writing binder/notebook. Scaffold: pull a small group of students that need extra support in creating a goal.
Instruct students to go back to their circle map and choose a different adversity to write about today. Their focus should be to meet their goal that they wrote for themselves, as well as the teacher will attempt to push students thinking by asking them to try including a flashback like Nora does in chapters 2 and 3.
Day 8-10: Writing: Students will work on adding figurative language to a story of an adversity. They will continue writing the story they began on day 7. Have students, before they begin writing, tell their Turn and Talk partner what their writing goal is and how they are going to meet it today.
After they have had 1-2 days to write, students will share their writing with a feedback partner. The feedback partner will have two focuses, what they like that the student did to meet their goal and what they wonder that their partner might do differently in order to reach this goal and possibly beyond it. ● Scaffold- sentence frames.
Students will take the feedback their partner gave them and revise/edit their story, making it even better. Day 11: Writing: Discuss Naheed’s story, have students reread their own quick write to themselves. Naheed feels pressured to talk about her hijab when she doesn’t want to. How did you feel during this part of the story? Did you sympathize more with Naheed or Eliza? Is there a way Naheed could have handled the situation better? Using how the class decided to be respectful of others differences before the chapter, did Eliza follow this? How could she have been more respectful? How could Naheed have been more respectful to Eliza?
Formative- Students will rewrite an ending to this chapter in order for the characters to show more respect to each other’s differences. They will change the ending to a better outcome of what Naheed could have done differently. They must incorporate some of the things that they have taken from the book as writers, such as dialogue and figurative language, into their new ending. They must continue from the text and stick to the realistic fiction of the genre. Students will need to keep their narrative goal in mind as they write this switch in styles from a personal story to a fictional one. Day 12: Writing: Author’s chair. Students will get the opportunity to share their writing so far. Students may share any of the pieces that they have written thus far. Many of them might say that the story that they want to share is not finished, let them know it is okay to share even if their story is not complete. Student’s will give feedback after listening to the story, giving feedback on both a strength and a room for improvement. Students should refer back to the Narrative Learning Target in order to give better feedback.
Day 13: Writing: Internal thoughts. Discuss with students what internal thoughts are, how we can think something in our minds but not say it out loud. Using chapter 8 as an example, students will go back and reread looking for internal thoughts from Sergio. Students will be in teams and it will be a competition of who can find the most of Sergio’s internal thoughts. Each team gets a point for correctly identifying one. However, they lose a point if they write a sentence that is not an internal thought of Sergio’s. The points will force them to focus on really analyzing if a sentence is his thought or if it is just part of the story. Day 14: Writing: Students will begin collecting evidence to support their opinions to questions that refer them back to the text and to some of the challenges that the characters face, focusing back toward adversity with our characters. They will use the questions and their evidence to guide a socratic seminar, discussion, the following day. Description of Socratic Seminar is on Day 15. Students will need to have evidence to express their thoughts or opinions. They can pull evidence from the text or from other resources. Teacher will front load the reason that we collect evidence to support our opinions. (evidence to show why, Taylor Swift and Kanye Famous debacle) The five questions that will be a part of the discussion are as follows; 1. In chapter 9, Naheed’s uncle believes she should go to an all muslim school. Why would this be a good decision or why might it be a bad one for Naheed? Why would this be a good or bad decision for all of us to go to specialized schools? 2. In chapter 10, Will explains why he doesn’t believe his dad is a hero. What makes a hero? How does/doesn’t Will’s dad meet the description of a hero? (Student’s haven’t read chapter 10 yet, they may wait to collect evidence, specific to Will, until the following day when they read the chapter) 3. In chapter 8, Sergio explains the story of his cousin Ralph and how this is one reason he doesn’t like the idea of police officers. Why might someone trust or distrust the people that are supposed to protect them? Is his mistrust justified? 4. Which character in the story faces the worst adversity? 5. Which character has shown the most signs of perseverance? Day 15: Writing: Students will add more evidence to their questions for the socratic seminar after finishing chapter 10.This will be extra time to gather evidence for the question, In chapter 10, Will explains why he doesn’t believe his dad is a hero. What makes a hero? How does/doesn’t Will’s dad meet the description of a hero?
A Socratic Seminar will be held, using the questions and evidence from day 14. Day 16: Writing: Teacher will ask students to reflect on the goal that they wrote for their narrative writing. Students may choose to create a new goal at this point because they may have met their original goal, or they might choose to leave their goal the same. Remind students of what the focuses for writing have been so far; dialogue, internal thoughts, stretching moments, perspectives, figurative language, and flashbacks. Students may expand out of this but those pieces will help scaffold for students that may struggle for a new idea for them to set their goal for.
Students will read an article on Jeremy Lin, who has faced an adversity in his life. Students must first identify what the adversity is that he struggles with. As a class, the teacher will lead a discussion of the text and how we can turn this person into a character in a story, retelling this moment but as a narrative. Students have written mostly about only themselves up until now so the concept will need some scaffolding. Teacher will work on breaking down the learning target into pieces so that as a class they can figure out what they need to pull from the article.
Teacher will lead creating a flow map of the story, based on the article. Students will look for pieces of our flow map. Firstly, what may be the events that we capture from the article and what descriptive details can we take from the article. As a class fill in some of the blanks. Let students know that it is okay to make some things up but that we can’t fully stray from the flow map. After some ideas have been generated about how we can make Jeremy Lin the main character of our story, allow student to begin drafting. Students will use their writing goal to guide them.
Mentor text- In chapter 12, Sergio explains his memories of his mom by using short sentences that are only a couple words. Read back through page 102 with students in order to discuss. Why would the author use only short word sentences? What does this make the reader do? Are these sentences good descriptive details? How might we use something like this in our Jeremy Lin story? Day 17: Writing: Mentor text- Teaching a lesson through the story. In both chapters 13 and 14, the author teaches us a lesson to the characters story. Reread these parts to the students. "People don’t understand, and it's your job to show them that you are proud of who you are" pg 106. "He only knew that he had to do something, because doing nothing would feel worse" pg 111. Discuss as a class why the author included these pieces. Discuss how the author shows this lesson. She shows the lesson, not by saying “the lesson I learned is…”, it is more subtle. Portrayed more as a form of dialogue or internal thought. Discuss how we can use this in our writing. Brainstorm some ideas together as a class of the lesson that could be portray from our article.
Students will continue writing their story about Jeremy Lin from day 16, they will still be working on reaching their individual goal, and they will try to conclude with a lesson similar to both these chapters. Day 18: Writing: Students will meet with their feedback partner. Students will share their goal that they set for themselves and their story. Feedback partner will look for their goal in their writing that was started on day 16 and give feedback on whether they reached this goal and feedforward on how to reach the goal better or beyond the goal. Students will revise their Jeremy Lin writing based on feedback. ● Scaffold- ○ Feedback sentence starters ○ Feedback note catcher Day 19: Writing: Students will read the article, Boys Survive 7 Hours Trapped Beneath the Snow. With a partner, students must decide what the adversity is and how they can turn these boys into characters in a story, retelling this moment but as a narrative. Students will read and annotate the article, looking for moments of big pieces of the plot and for where there are descriptive details. Students will use two different colors to underline the text. One color for the pieces of the plot that will need to go on a flow map and one color for descriptive details. Students will be able to write on the text directly or the can use Skitch, the app, to annotate.With their partner they will create a flow map of the story that they are going to write. Day 20: Writing: Students will draft their story about the boys stuck in snow. They will reference the flow map that they made with their partner on day 19 but will be writing their own story. Day 21: Writing: Mentor text- Chapter 21 has a lot of powerful figurative language. Discuss with students how this chapter is different because of these figurative statements. Discuss why the author made the decision to use that much figurative language. Have students share some of the quotes that they wrote in their character book for this chapter. Emphasize the drama of these phrases. Have students brainstorm where in their writing about the 2 boys stuck in snow they could add some powerful figurative language.
Students will meet with their feedback partner. Students will share their goal that they set for themselves and their writing. Feedback partner will look for their goal in their writing about the boys stuck in snow and give feedback on whether they reached this goal, how they may reach the goal better or reach beyond the goal. Partner will also check that they followed the flow map that they made together. Student will go back to their draft after the feedback and edit/revise. Day 22: Writing: Assessment- Write a narrative story that compares the adversities of a character from Nine, Ten and yourself. Prompt: Imagine you were to meet a character from the story, What would you say and do? How would you relate to the adversities they faced in the book? Would you and the character discuss it? Or how could you advise them to persevere through their challenges? Would the character be able to give you advice on your adversities? Day 23: Writing: Continue working on the narrative that students started on day 22. Review Narrative Learning Target so students will remember their focus prior to writing. After reviewing the learning target have students turn to their Turn and Talk Partner and share one thing from the learning target that they felt they did a really good job at yesterday and one thing from the learning target that they need to work some more on today. Day 24: Writing: As a class, read the story of Michael Wright. This is a true story of someone’s experience of 9/11, someone that was inside the building. It was written by an author of Esquire who heard Michael’s story and turned it into a narrative. Teacher will explain to students that while the book was historical fiction, this narrative is a real moment in someone’s life. ● Original copy ● Adapted version in order to be fifth grade appropriate
Recreate a flow map from this article with students. Have students read back through the article and look for moments of big pieces of the plot, and also for where there are descriptive details. Students will use two different colors to underline the text. One color for the pieces of the plot that will need to go on a flow map and one color for descriptive details. Students will be able to write on the text directly or the can use Skitch, annotation app, to annotate.
For a third read, students will focus in on a smaller amount of the text, cutting it in half. Instruct students to focus on page 3. Students will answer text dependent questions on the story from here to the end of page 5. Questions: 1. Michael uses the word Pompeii to describe how he would die. What clues from the text would help you determine the meaning of Pompeii? 2. Michaels sees a camera man while running. Why does he say it’s one of the weirdest things he’s ever seen? 3. Quote a piece of figurative language from the text and explain it’s meaning. 4. Michael talks to his reader during this section. Quote where you see him talk to his reader and explain why he does this. How does talking to the reader add to the story? 5. Why does Michael never wonder “Why me?” ? 6. Why does Michael call his brother at the pay phone? Cite evidence from the text. 7. Why does the author mention that Michael’s Wife’s Father is on his way with a black suit? Cite evidence from the text. 8. Does Michael perseveres through his adversity? How do you know? Day 25: Writing: Many people experienced 9/11 whether they were near or far and can retell where they were on that day. Teacher will retell their story of where they were on that day while modeling note taking. When finished, as a class together create a flow map of the teacher’s story. Teacher will model writing an introduction using the flow map, then together with the class ask for help with the body and conclusion. Day 26: Writing: The day before the teacher told her story. Tomorrow students will hear another teacher’s story. Before that can happen students will work to create some interview questions. Using the pieces for writing how can we get the details that we need? Students will need to think as a writer for their interview. They want the teacher’s story of what happened close enough that they can write about the teacher as a character for the story.
Day 27: Writing: A teacher will come into class and tell their story of where they were during September 11. Students will use the interview questions that they came up with on day 26 in order to obtain more information. Students will practice note taking while listening to the guests story.
In a small group, students will use their notes from the interview to help create a flow map of the teacher’s story. They will put their flow maps on anchor paper and hang them up around the classroom.
Day 28: Writing: Students will do a gallery walk of the flow map anchor charts so that they can see what some of the other groups put on their flow maps and they will get a chance to be reminded of their own. Students will then proceed to draft a 9/11 story using the teacher as a character.
When there is about 10 minutes left. Have students share with their feedback partner. Feedback partner will look for the student’s goal but will also give feedback on if the student is reaching the learning target. This will be their last chance to get feedback on their writing before the summative. Instruct students to take their Interview questions home tonight and ask their parents where they were during 9/11. Day 29: Writing: Summative: Students will interview a family member about what they recall about where they were during September 11. They will take the details that their family member gave them and they will create a narrative retelling their family member’s story. Turning their family member that they interview into a character. ● Scaffold: If students do not have a family member that recalls 9/11 and where they were, students can choose between two different options. They can interview a teacher in the school or they can be given an article that is a non-fiction text that tells about someone during the attacks and they will turn them into a character for their story. Students will receive two 40-50 minute periods in order to finish their writing. 40-50 minutes will be given to them today in order to begin writing their story.
Day 30: Writing: This will be the second 40-50 minute writing period for students to finish their summative story. Make sure that students know that they will need to turn in their writing by the end of this time.