A longer, well-written sentence on the topic or theme of the week is a good model for how students should aspire to write in the future. With three grade levels, I chose a couple words from each class's words of the week. The students have to read it and write it throughout the week, and it enhances their content knowledge too! We used sentence strips.
If you are going to write sentences you want your students to be able to choral read and understand throughout the week, why not use some sight words and vocabulary words? Of course, the students like to help you write them. You can also plan your own, and alternate between expository, fact-based sentences and sentences would fit in a story or dialogue.
A longer, well-written sentence on the topic or theme of the week is a good model for how students should aspire to write in the future. With three grade levels, I chose a couple words from each class's words of the week. The students have to read it and write it throughout the week, and it enhances their content knowledge too! We used sentence strips.
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This week, some of my students are reading "Frog and Toad Together." I just published a new Sentence Builder Literacy Center to help them practice their new spring vocabulary.
It's important to give students models of different kinds of sentences. Illustrations help them make meaning from unfamiliar words. These are black and white and easy to print. Let your students use these sentences to build stories or expository paragraphs. Enjoy! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/K-1-Spring-Gardening-Sentence-Builders-Literacy-Center-1096233 It's fun to read about what other teachers are doing to teach expository writing. Through Google, I stumbled upon this interesting blog post from another teacher: http://4thgraderacers.blogspot.com/2013/01/expository-writing.html This teacher talks about using circle maps and thinking maps in teaching fourth-grade expository writing.
I used to spend a lot of time drawing an organizer on the board or on charts that I would then display on the SmartBoard or document camera. It turns out that my students were more likely to look at one piece of chart paper that stays up all week. It is basically the science topic or other expository topic with key vocabulary words and drawings. We use these to generate our expository sentences every day. We refer back to illustrations, textbooks, websites, and other videos on the topic as needed. I keep all the materials close by the SmartBoard cart so we can reach for them as needed. I have a different challenge of teaching students in a multi-age classroom. Students range from kindergarten to second grade and are at very different stages in the writing process. What has been inspiring is how the younger students are able to make meaning from the different charts and writing frames we use even if they are not yet at the point where they can write their own sentences. They are memorizing and recalling facts and contributing to discussions. They are excited every time I introduce a new writing unit. They are my inspiration to keep writing and delving into expository writing. If students are going to be knowledge workers in our digital, globalized economy, they must be able to digest a range of facts quickly, decide which ones are most important, and then spit them out in the desired format for their employer or other audience. I want to find more resources out there that discuss maps and organizers that work best. We have so many choices for mapping our writing plans and brainstorming how to organize facts for expository text. Do you find paragraph models more helpful than T-charts, Venn diagrams, circle maps, or other choices? Teaching some aspects of my woodchuck's unit has been fun. It's amazing that the students never seem to get tired of learning about animals and their habitats. This helps me understand why the Reading Street series is so heavy on animal expository text.
We are getting to that time of year when there are only a limited number of weeks left to fit in the key skills that will prepare our students for the next grade. We are down to the wire, but we still have a good chunk of time left with which to change up our plans and routines. Building a strong foundation for expository text has gone well, but getting students to the point where as emergent readers they can write their own expository text remains a challenge. Despite lots of videos, realia, and pictures, some kids just take a long time to build their confidence and use inventive spelling for writing prompts. I am very excited about seeing that light bulb turn on in my students. It happens at the most unexpected times. For more free information and a look at my updated Woodchucks Unit for struggling readers, please visit my TPT store. I also have lots of cool giveaways, including the free Woodchucks game and the Polar Bear cards that have been very popular. My newest creation is a small Woodchucks Writing Motivational Kit with woodchuck money for teachers to give as rewards to students who are using proper capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. I found some great resources here that will help me to understand some of my younger students who are behind in some of their development. Of course, expecting students to write on grade level a la Common Core assumes children have the thought processes as a foundation for planning what they will write. Otherwise, educators have to help them get there, differentiating writing instruction to meet their developmental needs.
The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning has some cool free resources for teachers, including social stories. Check it out here: http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/strategies.html It is fun to see how other teachers help their students write expository work in all its different forms. After thinking about the NY times article, I realized there is a lot more we can do with teaching reading and writing from the point of view of text structures. If we are getting kids to write more for their weekly article or story and calling it expository instead of just reading comprehension, then they won't feel like they are learning expository text structures in isolation. It is intimidating to students when we essentially say, "Now, it is your turn to put everything down on paper."
Last quarter, my first graders were required to write a letter in expository form for a district assessment, and it was very hard for them. They were able to relate the concept to writing a letter to Santa. In the future, I hope to get them more excited about writing about other topics, not just animals like Polar Bears, Ants, Hibernating Animals, and Woodchucks. I hope readers had a great first week back after break! I know the rest of the year is going to go by fast from here on out! This goes into a lot of depth. I am going to be including a lot more of this in my units.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/issues_in_depth/10WritingSkillsIdeas.html Enjoy! Why make more resources when they are already available for free on the Internet? That is what I always say. I was thinking about adding more Animal Study resources to my writing units, but here is a tool where teachers can customize graphic organizers to the needs of students.
Lesson plan link http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/animal-study-from-fiction-286.html Animal study graphic organizers link http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/animal-inquiry/ I added 16 more pages to this unit.
There are ideas for getting kids to write about what they observe in pictures in preparation for science writing in the middle and upper grades. There are also another easier version of the Nonfiction Woodchuck Story, 4 new pictures, 2 pictures for compare/contrast (woodchuck and hoary marmot), 6 sentence frame cards for beginning writers, 2 new fact sheets, a class graph page, a Wordle template, and word sorts for syllables and parts of speech. I have just added a new product to TPT store.
These supplemental materials which are a unit in themselves are being sold separately, all based on the Woodchuck theme. |