This week, I read chapter three called, “What are you Really Writing About? Discovering the Inside Story” from Mentor Texts. The chapter starts off by talking about helping students pick territories to write about which can help them later on in the writing process. The authors wrote, “The point is, it’s not the territories themselves that are important, but the use of them as trigger words that spark the memories for the inside stories” (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, p. 54). I think that this is a great thing to do with students and a great way to put it. I know that I always have a hard time thinking about what I want to write, so having this list to refer back to with just one or two words for different topics can help to focus me and help me to think through some of my ideas more. I also like that they recommend putting it at the back of the notebook so that students can return to it later on and add to it if they get another idea. I love this, because sometimes throughout the day I get sparks of ideas that would be great to write about, but because of when I get them, I may not be able to write my full story/thought out right then and there. If I just a note or two down in the back of my book about it, I can return to it later to expand upon that idea and get all my thoughts out.
Another thing that the authors talked about in this chapter was that it is important that the students see your brainstorming process. I also think that this is important, that you show students how you retrieve those ideas in your head the best way that you can. Then, students can mimic this behavior on their own when they go to brainstorm. Also, if a student has an idea about something during the time you are modeling the brainstorming process, you could allow that student to explain a little bit about how they thought of their territory, where they got it from in their brain. We as teachers can explain where and how to do things, but if you have time to allow a student or two to also try to explain their thinking, that could be very helpful. Sometimes students do a better job at explaining things like this because they are kids and better understand how other kids’ brains work, versus as an adult that sometimes can be challenging.
I was wondering though, what tools/tricks may be out there to help students to understand the balance of teacher modeling and then other time for them to talk. I think that getting students to talk about what they are going to write is tremendously powerful, but I have worked with a lot of students who love sharing with the teacher their ideas and as you brainstorm a list, they can’t help but shout out something related to what you put on your list, then all the students want to do this. I love hearing my students stories and validating their experiences and showing that the events in their lives are important, but at the same time writing sometimes only gets like 30 minutes a day and if all students keep sharing and shouting out, then that leaves less time to write their ideas. I also don’t have a good go to saying yet for when students start to shout out their ideas/stories during teacher modeling time, because I don’t want to dismiss them and their great ideas, but I also don’t really have a good way to guide them back to my modeling.
I have also found that sometimes students don’t want to or will refuse to turn and talk to a partner to share their ideas and I have one student now who will only share her ideas for writing with me and doesn’t even what to tell my TA about what she is going to write about. So, for these students, what ways can you encourage them to also talk to a partner and not just to a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing her ideas and they are great ones, but I am also one person and there are some other students who also need some help/guidance for various reasons, so I can’t always be right there to listen to her. So, I am not sure how to help her branch out more and be more willing to talk/share with her peers. I also wonder if there are any tricks or tools out there for ways to help guide her to her peers to share her writing ideas.
I also love the author’s ideas of “Helping students discover the point of an author’s work means young writers will begin to understand the importance of making a point in their own writing and the many ways in which it can be expressed” (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, p 61). I am not sure if I have said this before, but the book Mentor Texts is amazing and has so many great ideas in it that can be used with so many different grades. This is a book that I can see myself going back to again and again to help me to teach writing better to my students. This idea they had about helping students understand the point of an author’s work was super enlightening to me. It is something very simple but could be revolutionary in changing the way our students write. I can’t wait to start trying this with my own students and I think this would be a great thing for my students to learn about in kindergarten to help their own writing. I read books all the time to my students, and they love being read to. I could easily see taking five minutes at the end of the different read alouds we do and talk about what the author’s point is and what they want us to understand from their writing. Then, during writing time, we can talk about how that could transfer to them and helping them understand that we are not just writing just to write. We are authors trying to get our points across to our readers, just like a certain author did in a book we read. I could see that transforming the way they view writing and go about their writing. I have one groups of kids who love writing time and get so excited to write, so helping them to write with purpose and with a certain point in mind could change their writing, and could be published in the class so that other students could read and try to figure out what their points are.
The last thing that I will talk about from this chapter, but I could talk about more it was so enlightening is mind opening to me was the very last paragraph before the your turn lessons when the authors write, “To discover the inside story, writers must begin by finding those treasures locked away in their hearts and minds that might make good topics for writing…authors must be able to wrap their arms around their topics and hold on tight…with this in mind, they write with clarity and purpose. Their points are not mysteries to the reader” (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, p. 64). This just shows the importance of finding territories and helping students to narrow them down to something they really want to focus on and find a point they really want to make in a piece and in doing so, their writing changes and becomes stronger. All the things in this chapter are simile things that anyone could do with their class which would push their students to become better writers and produce strong pieces of text. I may have gone too in depth here on this chapter, but to me it was just so awesome to read about and gave me so many ideas to use in my own class that I am planning on starting right away.
When reading all about writing and effective writing strategies it makes me wonder if it is appropriate to have students just do some fun writings every now and then. What makes me think of this is as the 100th day of school is approaching with my students, I thought it would be fun that day to have them do a writing about before I turn 100 year I want to ______. I was just thinking that it would be a fun activity for students to do and then, we could hang them up on the bulletin boards in our hallway to show them off. After doing some of the readings this week it just got me a little curious about if that would be something appropriate to have my students do. I am not telling them what to write, but I did give them a little bit of a prompt to tie in with everything we are doing that day. So, I was just wondering like how to find a good balance of doing fun writing activities to go on with events happening around the school (such as Valentine’s Day, 100th day of school, etc.). Is there a good way to some themed writing like that which is also appropriate to have students do and write about? Maybe I am over thinking this and it is not a big deal, I just want to make sure that my students get the best support and teaching with writing as they can, while also having some fun little stories created here and there.
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal
This week I also read some more from Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I just love the way she organizes this book and just has so many great ideas and little things that she includes that she wrote about. I love her writing about her defining word, after reading that passage from her book, it instantly made me want to write my own and I knew just what to write about, my hair. Not too many people know what it is like to live as a ginger, simply because not too many people are gingers. I believe that it is a big part of my life and I have tons of stories I can tell people based just around my hair. This is a super silly thing to define and write about, but it is a good way to put my ideas down in a place all related to one thing. I can also then take each one of my definitions and transform them into a longer piece and expand my short little ideas here into much longer pieces. I think that this would be a really fun activity to try with students and something I could see them really getting engaged with and laughing about. As I was writing mine, I couldn’t help but laugh and giggle a little bit as I was writing because it was sparking all these memories in my head. See below for my definitions of the word ginger:
Brown Girl Dreaming
This week I also read part 2 from Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and all I can say is wow. This book is just so amazing and beautifully written, my book is marked full of lines or stanzas that I am just like wow, I can’t even say anything else. They are so beautifully crafted and each word I read just adds to this painting in my head that I have of Jacqueline living in Greenville with her grandparents and each poem I read just kits me harder and harder than the last. I can’t say enough about the power and strength of this book. One passage that I really loved was called “Lullaby” because it reminds me of when I am home and what I hear outside. I just also love the image and sounds that were created in my head while reading this. I think this would be an awesome piece to share with students and have them try to create their own that is similar, maybe what they hear at night when trying to sleep, or what sounds make them happy. I think a piece on sound and imagery portrayed through writing would be really awesome to have students try to do and could really push them to choose their words carefully and strategically.
Another poem that I loved reading in this book was called “The Fabric Store.” I loved this poem for many reasons. The first being that I loved that they had a place that they could do to that they were just people and I felt a sense of relief when reading this piece and I got a sense of belonging form them and just for a moment, things did not seem as stressful or as tense as some of the other pieces that I read for Part 2 of this book. I also loved it because life in general is different at the craft store, I cannot tell you the amount of positive experiences and interactions that I have had while being at a craft store. People seem to treat you different in there than anywhere else, even to this day. People in them understand craft and they understand the hard work it takes to make things and they just take life differently than like if you were to go into a grocery store. There have been times where I have started talking with people about my crochet in a craft store and we will stand there for hours if there is time and just talk about things we make and swap advice it is just a different kind of world in them.
Where I am From Poem
This week I also wrote a where I am from poem and I had a lot of fun writing it. It was fun to remember things from my past that hold a lot of importance to me that I didn’t necessarily realize the prominent role they play in my life. I loved figuring out some of these details of my life and trying to piece them together in a way that made sense to me and intertwining all these details in my life. I could see this being something really fun to try with older students (like 3rd-5th grade or even higher) I could see them really getting into it. I could also seem them being motivated to do this and then motivated to share with the rest of the class. One thing that could also be really fun to do with these poems is to have the students write them and edit them to a point that they are happy with them, and then invite the parents into class for a poetry slam type of thing where students could read their where I am from poems and it can be a big celebration of their writing. For me, poetry has always been intimidating and I never really knew where to start or if my work was good enough and I just was always so stressed about it. I am not sure if that is how it is/was for everyone, but that was my experience with it. So, doing something like this is an easy way to invite all students in and have them all participate in writing poetry and then celebrate them for doing so. Below you can see a draft of my Where I am From poem.
I am from block parties
And water balloon tosses.
From bare feet on flaming side walks
To sun burnt skin.
I am from palm trees outside my window,
Tall and stretching into the sky,
the perfect place for lizards to hide.
I am from secret Frappuccino’s and clumsiness
From Tucker and Cheerio.
I am from smarty-pants and wisecracks.
From she won’t make it past third grade,
And proving them wrong.
I am from counting cats and always running late.
From long visits with family,
To reminiscing the old times.
I am from the sunny south
And green beans with every meal, yuck.
From always having a full house and heart
To moving away and things changing.
I am from finding my passion
And having the courage and passion to go after it.
I am from living the dream every day of my life.
Extra:
See the image below for a poem that I wrote in my writers’ notebook which was written after there was a small fire at my apartment complex, no one was hurt or injured. But I realized from this, that my fight or flight response at 1:30 in the morning is non-existent and I just could not understand what was going on, so I was very lucky that it was not anything serious. In the red was the sounds I was hearing and in the orange are my internal thoughts I had while I was very confused that early in the morning.
References:
Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017) Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Rosenthal, A. K. (2016) Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, NY: Dutton.
Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books.