Informative Writing 4
for
California State Standards
for
California State Standards
Overview: this is just a quick writing unit for the first month of school. It's very basic. I just want students to wrap their brain about how to use artificial intelligence, how to use Google, how to follow a rubric, and how to bust out a quick essay. Other units of mine are longer and more intensive, but this is just a quick short introduction to informative writing. It all circles around the topic of California's geography, and demographics and how it has changed over time.
DAY ONE: Introduction to Non-Fiction
Why do we read non-fiction?
Before we start a unit on how to write informative, we need to know WHY readers read informative pieces. I like to start with a large chart and say "How do you learn new things?" There are a lots of wonky answers you will get: Watch a youtube video, ask someone else, read a book.... This is a good time to guide the discussion into the different structures of writing, like how-to, cause and effect, sequential. End the conversation with something like "All good writers know what their readers want to know and present that information in an easy way." How do we read non-fiction?
This is a good time to change setting: if kids were on a carpet, head back to desk; if you are at desks, head to the library. Now, students will be thumbing through informative texts and make some observations.
Give students some non-fiction texts about the ... and this scavenger hunt list. They need all different types of non-fiction books, including articles you printed, your math book, your science book, some ones you got from the library, just a big stack. And a highlighter and a pencil. If we want kids to use text features in their writing, they have to observe some text features! This can take fifteen minutes or forty-five, totally on how on you run it.
DAY TWO: Introduction to Main Idea
This year, my class really struggled with main idea and writing paragraphs that reflected the main idea. So, I threw some reading of informative texts right before we start so students have some strong models to follow. These articles are taken from the Article of the Week page, if you wanted to know more. (Maybe you teach these article during your reading block and then come back here for writing?)
California Entrepernuers California Entrepreneurs
DAY THREE & FOUR: Describing different regions
Using their writer's notebooks, or just a blank piece of paper, have each student watch a portion of the video, and then write for about five minutes. Then, students can go back over that quick draft with a highlighter to highlight the very best describing sentence they have. This will become part of the second paragraph of their final draft! When each video is done, ask your writers the question, "What is the main idea you are writing?" The idea can be "California deserts are vast," or "California's Valley is mostly agriculture." Students might see some causes and effects, such as "California mountains send water to the valleys" or "People in coastal areas live in more crowded areas than people of the Central Valley."
DAY Five: Describing different regions, in reference to indigenous tribes
Today's work leans towards the PBL about California communities. Here is where students connect their learning about the regions to the tribe they are going to be researching. This quick video gets kids thinking about how the regions can change the lifestyle of the people who live there.
This map of California, provided by the California government, shows the tribal lands where the proposed high-speed train will come through. This is great if you want a print a hard copy for kids.
DAY SIX: Mini-research project
Use this note-taking guide with the wonders of artificial intelligence, Google, books and articles you print. The point here is not to get students reading, or learning how to navigate research, the point here is just to get kids writing with some preliminary information. So it literally doesn't matter how they answer the questions. For the first paragraph, of the first page, there are two parts to that note taking sheet: their own thoughts, and then the thoughts of their peer. So for about a minute, I have students fill out the first box for themselves, and then I have five or six students share out what they wrote, allowing other students in the class to copy if they wanted to. Then I give everyone about three minutes to find a peer and borrow their idea ideas. It just makes elaboration easier in the writing process. Page two of the notes, where they start researching for paragraph two, is where they are gathering preliminary ideas.
If you use the Google slideshow to the right, it walks kids through the research, step-by-step, and the first page of the Google slides gives them all the Internet links you can put in their Google classroom.!
Informative Writing Examples
DAY SEVEN: Write a quick 3 paragraph essay
With their notes and thoughts done, we can do a quick essay. Follow this guide and can you probably rock out an essay in one or two class periods. You can use the slideshow if your class needs to be told step-by-step.