Resources

• Calkins, L., Mraz, K., & Golub, B. (2013). Nonfiction chapter books: Grade 1, Unit 2, Information. Portsmouth, NH: First Hand, Heinemann.

 

Main Food Group(s)

• Writing Processes & Strategies

• Writing Conventions

• Knowledge Building

 

Curriculum Expectations

The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8, Language

 

Overall Expectations

1 - Generate, gather, and organize ideas and information to write for an intended purpose and audience

4 - Reflect on and identify their strengths as writers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful at different stages in the writing process

 

Specific Expectations

1.1  identify the topic, purpose, audience, and form for writing, initially with support and direction

1.2 generate ideas about a potential topic, using a variety of strategies and resources

2.1 write short texts using a few simple forms

2.4 write simple but complete sentences that make sense

4.1 identify some strategies they found helpful before, during, and after writing

 

Relevant Background Knowledge

• Students have an understanding of narrative writing from last term's Writing Workshop unit

• Students have practiced using basic punctuation (ending sentences with a period or exclamation mark) and grammar (beginning each sentence with an upper case letter, checking to see that each sentence "makes sense", etc.)

• Last term students generated a writer's checklist and practiced self-assessment using its criteria

 

Lesson Steps:

 

Introduction: Students and teacher are seated together at the carpet. The teacher tells students, "This is a very exciting day as we will be starting a new unit of study in Writer’s Workshop! Before the holidays we were storytellers (when we worked on narrative writing) and now we’re going to be experts, writing to teach others about what we know!"

 

Let’s start an investigation and try to figure out the differences between the story books we used to write and the teaching books we will be writing now! I am going to read a little bit of a story book that we’ve read and then a little bit from a teaching book and while I’m reading, I want you to use your fingers to list all the ways that the two books are different. We are going to share our ideas after I’m finished reading.

 

The teacher reads a few pages from each book and after finishing, re-asks students the same question: How is the story book different from the teaching book? Students turn and talk to the person beside them for approximately 2 minutes.

 

The teacher brings the class back and points out a few of the ideas she heard while the students were talking and stresses the main point: that writers of teaching books use a teaching voice, not a story-telling voice and they write with facts and information.

 

Group Activity: The teacher enlists the student’s help to think about what authors do to get ready to write teaching books so that the students can write one today.

 

The teacher models how she asks herself questions about what she knows really well in order to generate a topic to teach others. She pretends to be a writer thinking about potential topics and before she does this, she asks the children to put their thumbs up when they have figured out a topic that they’d like to write about today. She asks herself, "What do I know a lot about that I could teach others? Is there an animal or a sport that I know a lot about? I used to be an Irish dancer, maybe I could teach people about dance?"

 

When the majority of students have their thumbs up, the teacher tells her students to quickly turn to a partner and share what they’d like to write about.

 

The teacher tells her students that today they will be learning that when a writer writes a teaching book, they become a teacher and teach people all about a topic. While writing, many writers find it helpful to use a teaching voice and to organize the information they want to talk about on their fingers (1 point, then another, then another, etc.).

 

The teacher models using a teacher voice (and transitional words like first, next, also, etc.) and her fingers to teach her students about Irish dancing.

 

After two points, the teacher will stop and pretend to think hard about what to write next making it clear that if she can only think about two things to say about dance then it probably isn’t the best thing for her to talk about because she wants to teach her reader lots of things. Eventually, she finishes modelling with five points about dance. She reinforces the example by calling her students attention to the fact that she thought about as many things as she could about dance and held up a new finger each time she switched to a new subtopic. She tells the children that now it is their turn to write their very own teaching book!

 

Students will turn back to their partners and tell them what they would like to write about and the five pieces of information they have about their topic.

 

After a few minutes of discussion, the teacher will call the students back and praise them for all the ideas they have come up with. The teacher reinforces the main teaching point: that writers of teaching books use a teaching voice when writing and they organize the points they want to write about on their fingers.

 

Independent Activity: Using their five page notebooks, students spend the remainder of the period writing. The goal for them is to get as much writing done as they can (at least 2 sentences per subtopic) focusing on getting their ideas on paper rather than worrying about correct spelling.

 

Wrap Up/Consolidation: The teacher tells the students to bring their teaching books to the carpet. She brings back a writing checklist that they had generated together over the first term while they were learning about narrative writing. She tells students that this checklist has changed a little bit because now they’re writing teaching books however, many of the things on the list that good writers do are the same no matter what kind of book they’re writing. The teacher asks her students to listen and look at their books as she reads through the checklist and if there is something on the checklist that they know they did then they give themselves a thumbs up. If there is something that they forgot to do or need to work on they give themselves a thumbs down.

 

Differentiated instruction:

ELL Students:

On all partner tasks these students will be with their buddies who can help them to understand all oral instructions. These students will only be required to write three points and be provided with three page books (as opposed to five). The teacher will help these students organize their three points using a graphic organizer to reference as they write, and small drawings to accompany each point so that they can remember their points easily. These students will focus on creating labelled illustrations for each page once they are finished their writing in order to enrich their books and increase confidence in their abilities.

 

Student with reading/writing difficulties:

This student will only be required to write three points and be provided with a three page book (as opposed to five). The student will work in a small group with the teacher and ELL students to organize their three points into a graphic organizer. This student will focus on creating labelled illustrations for each page once they are finished their writing in order to enrich their book and increase confidence in their abilities.

 

Assessment:

Observational Assessment

Writing Assessment

 

The teacher will circulate as the students are assessing students based on:

Did they generate a topic without support?

Did they generate five (or three) points of information?

Are they able to stay on task for the period?

Are they able to work collaboratively with partner to add detail? (Being a good editor and a good listener)

Did they write using a “teaching voice”?

Is writing legible?

Language conventions: sounds in words represented with letters, sight words spelling correctly, finger spaces in between words, used lowercase letters and capitals to start new sentences, finished sentences with proper punctuation.

Could students appropriately reflect upon their own work using success criteria checklist?