Writing Classwork

Click on the attachments below to see examples of specific

writing concepts we're working on

SPECIFICALLY AS OF OCT 2010:

WAYS TO BEGIN OUR ESSAYS----onomatopoeia; question; complex sentence;

WAYS TO ORGANIZE EXPOSITORY WRITING----transition words; 3 ideas or reasons; save the best for last

BASIC EDITING---capitals and endings

IN GENERAL....

In general, our daily writing time follows a writer's workshop model.

Writer's workshop is corny educational jargon that refers to students working on projects through a process----brainstorm something, organize some thoughts, write a draft, edit it, revise it, share it with an audience. I have never liked that word, but I think the idea is as solid as a mountain: you learn by climbing, and the climbing is real work.

So, as opposed to everyone filling in the blanks on a worksheet about, say, adjectives, students will instead participate in a mini-lesson about what adjectives are, when we use them, various forms of them, exceptions to the rule, etcetera, then be released to work on some independently structured piece of writing for a while. During a brief teacher conference, the student and instructor will discuss strengths and weaknesses of the piece, followed by suggestions for improvement. Ideally, some of those suggestions will include work on the concept we're studying (in this example, adjectives) and some sort of grade that helps the writer make a plan to do even better next time.

Now, to be perfectly honest, this way of teaching writing requires an extraordinary amount of instructor participation or it risks becoming hippy-dippy and unstructured: no-way am I comfortable having 25 ten year olds just write some stuff everyday without guidance, but no-way is it good to have the teacher grading and editing papers until ten every evening to be ready for individualized private writing lessons the next day. In my opinion, that was the problem that led to over-use of worksheety drill-and-kill types of writing instruction in the first place.

Thus, a reasonable adjustment to make the "workshop" structure measurable, manageable, and productive: students complete "units of study" in which we go over a concept and demonstrate it in several pieces of writing. Each unit of study will include some various writing prompts from which students can choose, and in the evaluation of the unit the students will create portfolios of their favorite work. They will control the topics and pieces they decide to revise and publish, and their grades will depend on meeting criteria from a checklist that includes the central concepts of that unit. Some units will last a few days, and some will last a couple of weeks.

Units of Study we will work on this year, week by week, include the following:

September: WRITING word of the month = SUBTLETY...terrific writing challenges readers and listeners to create images in their minds; all writing is a type of art

organizing an expository essay (ex: a main idea supported by reasons, facts, opinions, examples, steps, descriptions, and some sort of conclusion)
organizing a narrative essay (ex: a series of events with a conflict and a resolution that unfold over a period of time)
using commas with items in a series (ex: The student enjoyed napping, sleeping, and resting.)
using commas to insert an appositive (ex: The student, whose name was Charlie, fell asleep during PE.)

October: WRITING word of the month = ACTION...excellent writing helps the audience picture movement, shifting, and progress

ways to begin an essay (ex: ask a question; describe the scene; onomatopoiea; dialogue; state a fact or opinion)
ways to conclude an essay (ex: ask yourself "what do I want readers or listeners to do?" or "what do I want readers or listeners to feel?")
using commas with compound sentences (ex: The student felt sleepy, but she resisted the urge to fall asleep.)
using commas with complex sentences (ex: Although the student's eyes were droopy, she fought off an attack of drowsiness with a vigorous, face-stretching yawn.

November: WRITING word of the month = VIVIDNESS...effective writing leaves a high-definition imprint in the audience's memory

ways to write better about math and science (ex: scientific language; factual description; bulleted and numbered points)
comparing and contrasting things and ideas (ex: transitions such as On the one hand....With regard to....)
recognizing types of nouns (ex: common nouns such as gum, pronouns like her, proper nouns such as Ann, concrete nouns like truck, abstract nouns like imagination)
turning nouns into other parts of speech (ex: many nouns, depending on the context of the sentence, can be used as verbs or tinkered with to create adjectives or adverbs: howl can be a thing, an action, or can be turned into an adjective, for example)

December: WRITING word of the month = ZOOM...the best writers can focus tightly onto specific details and ideas

ways to write more effectively about literary ideas (ex: focusing on changes, focusing on the lingering image)
varying sentence length to improve writing fluency part 1 (ex: using a variety of longer and shorter sentences)
Persuasion part 1 (ex: what transitions work well)

January: WRITING word of the month = VARIETY...great writers look for alternative words in order to avoid being too repetetive

Active versus passive voice (ex: am-is-are-was-were-be-being-been followed by a past participle gives us the ball was thrown by Ed instead of Ed threw the ball)
Cliches and stereotypes (ex: You can't teach an old dog new tricks)
using a semicolon and a colon effectively
Point of View Part 1: 1st person, 3rd person narration
Persuasion part 2 (ex: how advertisers try to convince us we'll be happier)

February: WRITING word of the month = SURPRISE...exceptional writing often includes something the reader wasn't expecting

Apostrophes with contractions, singular possessives, and plural possessives
Apostrophe exceptions (ex: certain plurals, when the pronoun it is possessive----we will write an essay called Its)
varying sentence length to improve writing fluency part 2 (ex: Colons and semicolons)

March: WRITING word of the month = STRUCTURE...a fantastic writer purposely leads the audience to a conclusion by having a plan for where the piece is going

Punctuating dialogue (ex: who said the words---the character or the narrator
Developing a point and engaging your audience by "showing instead of telling"
Writing more clearly about historical concepts (ex: timeline, descriptive language, and considering alternative points of view)

April: WRITING word of the month = ATMOSPHERE...competent writers use specific images and words to set a tone or mood for the reader and listener

Developing vocabulary through various exercises (ex: continuum, spectrum, degrees of separation, Frayer diagram, other graphic organizers)
Developing an idea or concept using analogies, similes, and metaphors
Writing to explain how to play a particular game

May: WRITING word of the month = OBSERVE...a good author observes what other authors do

Point of view part 2: how would different people describe the same thing?
Alliteration
Assonance
Puns and Homonyms

JUNE: WRITING word of the month = Lauscaux....writers leave a record of who they were at this very time

Organizing our portfolios
Sharing our achievements and challenges with others

Subpages (1): Spelling

mr. arthur's class

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