Informative Writing
for
American History and Immigration
Embedded Files
WORK IN PROGRESS!!
Daily Lessons
DAY ONE: Introduction to Non-Fiction
PART ONE: 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."
PART TWO: 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 American Revolution, Colonial Life, the Civil War, Immigration West... 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 Online Non-Fiction
Here, we want students to notice how online information can be different. It's the almost the same scavenger hunt form, but... different.
TASK 1: First, devote ten minutes of kids brainstorming ideas of what they want to learn: how to get a million followers on youtube, how to be a vegan, why does the earth need polar caps, whatever.... Once students have a topic their entire group agrees with, they can just start searching. Students should be instructed to choose a web browser, and choose something they are interested in and just search for the first article that they think would answer the question. Here is the Online Scavenger Hunt List. The point here to to notice that everyone online has an agenda, which leads to come tech lessons, like the difference between .org and .edu... (Teacher Note: If you don't know those abbreviations, click here.) The point here is to notice that free things online often have different purposes than those for books, like gain followers, get advertising money, push an agenda, etc.
TASK 2: Once students research together, we explore a little more of the internet: Each group, with the same question, now has a different task: Students search for the same question with a different browsers, such as Bing, Google, Duck Duck Go, Explorer, Firefox. If your district pays for a service, like Discovery Education, Learning 360, Newsela, Readworks.org, students can use these as well.
Now, as we draw near the end of the day, steer students towards their actual formalized writing projects. You can give students three or four topics to choose from, to lean into the next steps of the project, such as "Who is Paul Revere?" or "Women in the American Revolution" or "How were indigenous groups affected by the American Revolution?" or "Why were slaves not included in the Constitution?" I mean, I don't like giving the internet over the my class and let them blindly look but it all depends on your class!
DAY THREE: Choose your person, Get inspired
Today, students are going to scan whatever books or resources you give them for names. Students will use this worksheet to keep track of the names found. Simply students scan the text for a name, write the name down, and an interesting fact that the author mentioned there. As students go through the resources, have them keep a tally of how many times that name came up. This is not an activity in citing your sources, just getting interest going. Basically, the names of George Washington, Samuel Adams, and the typical players should be popping up repeatedly. Maybe students are now interested in the person they're going to research and then will choose someone. Or...
At the end of the lesson, we make a large chart of the names everyone has found, just the names. We sit together in front of the chart with their papers in their lands and I say "What names did you find?" and "Who has a different name?"
You can extend this activity and talk about the kinds of people that the history books mentioned. Are they all males? Are they all Christians? Are they all land-owners? You can ask students how many mothers they listed, or how many indigenous leaders? You can ask if anyone found someone who lead a slave revolt? The idea you want kids to know is that history is not what happened, but what was written down. You want students to think deeply about what was missing and why it is missing. However, this is just a side conversation, not the entire lesson. The lesson here is for students to learn to write and to research.
Tell students they do not need to name their person by the end of the today... but they will need to do so tomorrow! For accountability, you can send home the sheet from "Day Four" and require the name to be written on top.
DAY FOUR: Commit to your person, Start Research
Now is the time for students to start researching their own person. I have students use this sheet. I provide students with boxes of books, as well as access to the internet and access to textbooks. I print some primary sources ahead of time from this site but also from the Library of Congress and the Newton Gresham Library. I use Newsela & ReadWorks and our class textbook. These articles are all on display around the room and students rotate among the resources to gather information. If you want students to choose their own person to research, now is the time to let students explore. In other words, if they can't find a lot of information on the person they picked, they have an option today to change to a different person or understand that they are responsible for their own research. However, don't feel bad about assigning a person.
If I were you, I would save the very controversial and intriguing characters from history for the next unit on persuasive writing. Those controversial people are John André, Nancy Morgan Hart, Benedict Arnold, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Banneker, Crispus Atticus, John Hancock. This is the time to teach about the people that are easy to find facts on. Click here for large list of American Colonists in case kids need more support in finding someone.
By the end of Day Four, students have a person chosen and at least one source of information found. If you need a sign up sheet, use this sign up sheet so no two kids have the same person.
DAY FIVE: Research your person
Complete the worksheet from yesterday. Students should be gathering lots of data on the person they choose. The more data the better!
DAY SIX: Start gathering Biographical Information
Yup, got a form for today too and yup, today is more research. Today, the research is a bit more focused. Today's work will become their first and second paragraphs of their writing. This is your basic biography, so if students can not answer a prompt or two, that's okay. This is just preliminary research to get the ball rollin. A wikipedia search is fine here for me. When students research their significant accomplishments, that is where we will hit the citations much harder. These are only fifth-graders, after all.
DAY SEVEN: Write sequentially
One of the main forms of informative writing is sequential writing. A biography is the best chance to practice this. Students should write sequentially from the time of birth, to the time of death. I like to give students some serious structure, such as saying...
The first paragraph covers the first 10 years of life,
The second paragraph covers their adulthood,
The third paragraph covers there is significant contributions.
The fourth paragraph covers their death.
But sometimes you might want to leave it a little more open… All depends on the class. But the main purpose here is things should be written sequentially.
Model Text about Roger Sherman: Sequential
Model Text About Roger Sherman: Cause and Effect
Do you need to practice sequential writing more?
If you need to practice more sequential writing, but you want to keep with this theme of the American revolution, then we can talk about tying knots. Tying knots was a very important thing for the sailors during the revolution and this is a quick video on how to do different types of knots. Watch this video and have the kids practice tying different knots. Then, you can have them write a paragraph and make diagrams in order to communication this. This activity emphasizes the importance of telling all the steps as well as emphasizing the importance of using diagrams in your writing. Use this form if you want students to take written notes during the videos.
DAY EIGHT: CITE YOUR SOURCES
If you need to add another day for kids to write a complete draft, this is the time. They need a complete draft to do "Day Eight."
On Day Eight, we take a close look at their third paragraphs. I ask students to "Point to their third paragraph." Then, I have students highlight the sentence that tells the person's most significant contribution. Then, I go on the offensive: I ask them how they can came to that conclusion, who said that, what makes them such an expert? Why should I believe them? Let me speak to your manager! HA HA!
I take a minute to specifically show how to insert a quote, how to punctuate it correctly, how to cite the source correctly. Once students know the grammar of the situation, we often add a "Resources" page at the end of it their work and learn about MLA style bibliography.
I tell them that they should have at least (1) one quotation from an expert, (2) one thing paraphrased from a different expert and (3) a conclusion about it that is their original thought. I have some of this in modeled texts below, like this SAM ADAMS modeled text.
DAY NINE: WHAT MAKES AN EXPERT?
Oh, this conversation is an entire day.
First, I bring students to the carpet and ask them what they are an expert on. The list ranges from Minecraft, to K-Pop, adding two digit numbers. If students can't think of something, I start to make fun of them: oh you don't know how to brush your teeth? You don't know how to microwave lunch? You struggle to put on your socks and shoes? Don't know how to handle a chromebook? I do that just to remind students that being an expert covers many topics of life!
Second, we make a chart/list about what makes a person an expert in something. The student should come up with ideas like "lots of experience" or "educated" or "trust-worthy." We enhance this list by asking what makes someone a fake expert, look like an expert but not really.
And then I have students watch a few commercials.
Mean Joe Green Is he an expert on Nutrition? Are they selling a Coke because it's nutritious? Is he an expert on being thirsty? Are they selling Coke because it makes you less thirsty? Or is there a cool factor here? Is there even an expert at all?
Where's the Beef? In this commercial, those little old ladies are supposed to be experts on cooking. And grandmas are often experts on over feeding their grandchildren. Do you think Wendy's tried to use these ladies as experts?
How many licks does it take to get the center of the Tootise Pop? You get the idea... Why does the boy repeat the message? Is the boy on expert? Is the owl supposed to be an expert?
And then we watch an CNN10. In this case, the news program tries to show experts, with the assumption that CNN is also an expert. We have a great discussion here also. Is this pure informative? Is CNN in general informative?
Finally, we use our history textbooks and our science textbooks and we scroll through them again looking for just the experts used. We look at the bibliography in the back of the book and experts cited within the text. Sometimes textbook companies have a page in the front thanking contributors and we social media them and see if there are experts! It's a fun day!
Finally, we head back to that chart we made. I repeat the idea that good informative writers use experts, facts and good sources. Not all informative or persuasive texts do this, but educated people do!
DAY TEN: Write with a Main idea: Introduction
Now this portion actually starts a new section. Students need to learn to write now with a main idea. That means students need to form some sort of a generalization. If you keep with the theme of American history, colonial history, Civil War history and all that… You can simply sit the class down with a big chart paper and come up with some generalizations about American history. By the end of the carpet session, every student should walk away with a main idea that they are ready to prove. That's going to mean that the next few days are full with finding facts about that main idea. However, just on day eight, just today, we're just coming up with some generalizations about American history. If worst comes to worst and the conversation does not go the way you want it to, give students this sorting activity. You can go over it first, but remember, none of this works unless the kids already have an idea about American History and already studied it a bit. They should be making generalizations about things they already know.
DAY ELEVEN: Write with a Main idea: Gather Research
I use this form for students to start gathering the research. If you want, you can assign students a generalization if they have trouble coming up with one on their own. Students will spend the day with books, articles, encyclopedia's, or just browsing the internet, getting random facts.
DAY TWELVE: Write with a Main idea: Sort into paragraphs
Yesterday, when students were gathering research on that form, they were essentially making their own sorting sheet. Students can now cut out each strip of a fact they found order to organize them into paragraphs. You may also have students create their own paragraph outline. Depending on the class, you might want to provide the paragraph outline for them. The main purpose today is to get all those facts into paragraphs. I display this outline to the class and give them about three minutes to complete each bullet point. Some kids really need that structure.
Another option you can do as a teacher, is to give the class 40 minutes of quiet writing time, while you do a small group of students with the outline.
Another option is to push out that outline to students in Google classroom, and make a copy for each student. In this case, students would be replacing the bullet point, with the sense they wrote on their own. That requires a little bit more computer savvy, but, in this case, the directions are right in front of them! Literally!
Supplementary Resources
Identify Structures This handy-dandy worksheet is a way to start off the unit: getting students reading informative texts with the lens of a writer.
Sam Adams Modeled Writing This is just a boring old model text I wrote. You can use it to compare to your rubric, judge it and say why it's boring, highlight the main idea in each paragraph or...... What I like to do is give a copy to every kid and make them make it better: Add graphics, make some words bold, change sentences so they make more sense... stuff like that.
ReadWorks Printed Informative Articles: read works is a great website for teachers to find articles quick and fast. You get so many free downloads with an email address, and then you pay a yearly subscription or something. So this is just a sneak preview to see if you want to buy Readworks or not. I use these articles multiple times in my classroom, and print out a copy for everyone to highlight and what not.
Sorting Activities: I have two sorting activities: Sorting with Sam Adams and Sorting with Anna Strong. These are simply facts on strips of papers. You can have students cut out the strips, sort them into paragraphs, and then use that as the bare bones skeleton to start their own paragraphs. I often use this with students who have trouble getting started, or a kid who struggles to gather research independently. Other words, the sorting activities can be used whole class, or can be used to supplement.
Sorting with threes: When you need to practice different informative structures with your students, such as cause-and-effect or problem and solution, there are these three here. One is for George Washington, one is for Benjamin Franklin, and one is for Benedict Arnold. Students are simply sorting the sentences, whether they are comparative sentences, or contrasting sentences, or whatever type. You can further the activity by having students than write it into a full paragraph, make a shared writing about all three men,
Advanced Writers
Were the men of the Boston Massacre ethical?
Yup, that is a pretty hard question. Students are gonna have to do a lot of research and really understand the Boston Massacre. So I made this side lesson. If you are using the book King George: What was his problem from my Novels page, this lesson is write there in the journal. Here is it a separate lesson. Students will use my templates to research the men involved in the Boston Massacre and determine whether their actions were ethical or not, using the icons of depth and complexity for Gifted Children. At the end, students will write a four-paragraph essay on what they think. Sure, this requires a lot of advanced thinking. But as you've come to know my work, you know that I've broken it down step-by-step so that students can succeed at this difficult task. So check out the link, and get them writing and thinking differently!
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