Mentor texts: Chapter One + Article "The Writer's Notebook"

Mentor texts are so important! I had never really realized before and appreciate how this chapter defined that there are many types of mentor texts that do not exclusively need to be books, but can also be newspaper, podcasts, etc. When reading this chapter, I gained a modern perspective on writing and what a writing relationship between students and teachers should be. I found a great correlation between the article that we read on the week about journalling in class. Mostly the liberty that students should be given, promoting and modeling writing with your students. I would like to add, although not explicitly stated in the article, I feel as though writing should be combined in all subjects and generalized across content areas and not taught in isolation or solely with ELA. Teaching our students that they are able to be writers is a stepping stone for so many future successes. In my own personal history, I felt like the "day book" was a meaningful experience for me and really allowed myself to feel as though I was capable of writing and producing quality thoughts. I had went eleven years in school feeling like I was always one step behind the other kids until I had this one teacher (student teacher) who introduced me to this whole other world of writing and creativity.

Textbook By Amy Krouse ii-59 + Writer's Notebook

This book was great! I wanted to keep reading but had to force myself to stop. I connected a lot with her section, Geography and wrote about this in my writer's notebook, about how the idea of coincidences. I am always looking for coincidences, or rather greatly appreciate them. I usually find myself finding many coincidences with numbers and seeing certain ones in places all the time. The most frequent number combination I usually see is, 10:13. I have been noting this as early as ten years old maybe even earlier. Across my life, I have noticed this combination so frequently, I note it now as a sign that I am exactly where I am suppose to be.

This book also made me appreciate her writing style so much, I did not think to "borrow" the style until after the fact. I have been thinking non-stop in the last week about my own Writer's notebook, and feel I could not figure out what to write. I am eager for the next couple weeks to investigate the art of writing and making a better habit out of it. Ever since I was young, I have utilized the art of writing, dabbling here and there but I always felt like it had to be about my own life (modeling after what they do in movies). I was/am too type A to really think about writing outside the box - I even struggled with the same problem when I was in undergrad. It was not until I graduated the first time round that I was able to journal and that became conditional because I was living in Spain with limited wifi and whole lot of time.

Writing Progress

This week I have felt very productive with my journal! I have ten pages filled out so far and the week is not over. In my writer's notebook, I have incorporated elements of bullet journalling (more for the illustrations, example to the right) mixed with daily journal through ideas and insights provided by the resources I have found and been provided: Effective Writing Instruction and Launching the Writer’s Notebook (Frye 2020).

Such as:

• Taking magazine clippings and using it to create dialogue in my writer's notebook
• Heart Map: Small Moments (Heard, G. (2016)
• The use of poetry and writing about writing (Stephan King, On Writing & Sarah Kay, Point B)

I have tried developing some ideas of how to create my own invitations for my students to start engaging in the writing process. I have listed several in my writer's notebook and this is what I have developed so far:

• Using disposable camera to document their home, personal, and school life (for at least a week) and using those photos as writing prompts
  • This could be great for all student levels and would be interesting to see what types of pictures they take depending on their age!
• Write a story in ten words...
  • Then take your (third) word, (seventh word) of your own story and (forth) word of the person to your left and create a new story!
• Using Stephen King's, On Writing, to introduce the idea of perspective.
  • Using a prompt similar to his, "Look- here's a table covered with red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. [...] On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8."
    • Take a minute, envision this in your mind
    • "Do we see the same thing?"
    • What do you see?
    • Compare with partner

These are just a few of invitations that I have come up with. My hopes for the next week is to develop a few more so that I can start developing my own library of invitations and writing ideas.

Brown Girl Dreaming + Textbook By Amy Krouse

When reading Textbook by Amy Krouse this week, I took notes on each page that I thought could stimulate some writing ideas. This is what I came up with:

• Pg. 65 - "Text a short good luck message for yourself and someone else. all messages will be gathered and put into a bottle that will be tossed out to sea."
• Pg. 66-67 - A timeline of something you have done and don'd do anymore
• pg. 69-73 - minimalist wardrobe ** (a good entry for me)
• pg. 74 - food association and people
• pg 79 - Your highs and lows in graph style

When I began reading brown girl dreaming, the style was challenging and took a couple of pages to get used to. Jacqueline Woodson did such a great job at putting so much meaning into her story and to me I believe this book could be studied in great detail. Each page contains so much information that someone could truly go through each page and critically example her language and meaning behind her words. I particularly enjoy the observation and image she creates for the audience when she is describing who she is and her identity associated with her family.

I was especially inspired by these few lines:

look closely, there I am

In the furrow of Jack's brow

In the Slyness of Alicia's Smile

in the bend in Grace's hand ....

There I am...

Beginning

When working with students on their identity, I get rather bored with generic "Who am I" prompts. I like the idea of using this book as a mentor text and using these lines to express and talk about one's identity in association with family and family relationships. These lines could be borrowed and adapted so that each student could create their own Identity poem. On page 12 of Brown Girl Dreaming, Jackie describes the photos she sees of her different family members and then launches into her "There I am" dialogue.

I wanted to give it a try and made a model of what I would do with students. I found some old family photos and used them to inspire my writing ...

Mentor Texts: Chapter Two (Dorfman et al. 2017)

I really like this book! There is so much valuable information for teachers in this textbook and what I appreciate the most about this text is the many lesson plans that are provided at the end of each chapter. This text pairs quality resources, materials, and lessons with each chapter and are specific to what was mentioned in each chapter. This week, I took on the challenge to try out one of the lessons (many of the lessons this week helped students generate ideas to write about that they could easily comeback to). The lesson I decided to focus on was Lesson Two: Finding Topics from a Memory chain.

BOOKS TO READ: Small Beauties by Elvira Woodruff, Night Tree by Eve Bunting, or Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox.

BRAINSTORM: Objects in the room, words, ideas, seasons, or holidays that can start the memory chain.

MODEL:

• Choose one of the words from the board and begin to think aloud, recording ideas that are generated. Here is my own example:
  • Coffee Shops
    • Where I do most of my homework
      • But I have trouble staying concentrated
        • There are too many people
          • I am not in my own space
            • I always associated coffee shops with rain
              • Rain means the cold
                • Cold means I need more coffee!
                  • The cycle starts all over

SHARED/GUIDED:

• Have students choose a word from the board and try it out in their own writer's notebook. After 5 minutes or so have them turn to a partner and share what they wrote. Then they should circle the ideas/memories that they would not mind coming back to.

INDEPENDENT:

• Invite students to make their own memory chain in their own writer's notebook

REFLECTION:

• How do this strategy work for you (student)
• When would you use this again?
• What would you change?
• What did you like about it?

Personal Reflection:

• For me the first time, I did this in my own writer's note book, I started with the same initial word but ended with a completely different result. I encourage you to practice this on your own and a couple of times!
• For me - I can see myself using this practice in my class's writer's notebook often. Maybe after a long break or once a month, so that there is a constant stream of new writing ideas are being generated.

References

Rosenthal, A.K. (2016). Textbook. Penguin Random House. Print

Dorfman, L,R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Digging for treasure: discovering personal stories by connecting with literature. Mentor texts: teaching through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 21-50). Stenhouse Publishers. Print

Heard, G. (2016). Heart maps: Helping students create and craft authentic writing. Portsmouth, NH. Heinemann.

Frye, B. (2020). Effective writing instruction and launching the writer’s notebook (Google Slides). https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1crQpsnHw2iTRcTrmxOCwaZ7H- t8wxgSocQSIw_p9Ecg/edit#slide=id.g35f391192_0

Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming.