Nonfiction Craft Lessons

Nonfiction Craft Lessons
Author: JoAnn Portalupi
Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2001
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1571103295

Writing nonfiction represents a big step for most students. Most young writers are not intimidated by personal narrative, fiction, or even poetry, but when they try to put together a "teaching book," report, or persuasive essay, they often feel anxious and frustrated. JoAnn Portalupi and Ralph Fletcher believe that young nonfiction writers supply plenty of passion, keen interest, and wonder. Teachers can provide concrete strategies to help students scaffold their ideas as they write in his challenging genre. Like the authors' best-selling Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8, this book is divided into sections for K-2, 3-4, and middle school (grades 5-8) students. These divisions reflect various differences between emerging, competent, and fluent writers. In each section you'll find a generous collection of craft lessons directed at the genre that's most appropriate for that particular age. In the K-2 section, for example, a number of craft lessons focus on the all-about or concept book. In the 3-4 section there are several lessons on biography. In the 5-8 section a series of lessons addresses expository writing. Throughout the book each of the 80 lessons is presented on a single page in an easy-to-read format. Every lesson features three teaching guidelines: Discussion--A brief look at the reasons for teaching the particular element of craft specifically in a nonfiction context.How to Teach It--Concrete language showing exactly how a teacher might bring this craft element to students in writing conferences or a small-group setting.Resource Material--Specific book or text referred to in the craft lesson including trade books, or a piece of student writing in the Appendixes. This book will help students breathe voice into lifeless "dump-truck" writing and improve their nonfiction writing by making it clearer, more authoritative, and more organized. Nonfiction Craft Lessons gives teachers a wealth of practical strategies to help students grow into strong writers as they explore and explain the world around them. Be sure to look at the When Students Write videotapes too.

The Responsive Writing Teacher, Grades K-5

The Responsive Writing Teacher, Grades K-5
Author: Melanie Meehan
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-02-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1071840894

"This book is an instructive call to action for all of us who need to be reminded of what hope enacted as classroom practice can look like." — Cornelius Minor Every classroom is shaped by the skills, languages, social and cultural identities, perspectives, and passions of the children within it. When you approach writing instruction with a deep understanding of children in your classroom, everything else—assessment, planning, differentiated instruction, mentor and shared texts—begins to fall into place. And you can teach writing with inclusion, equity, and agency at the forefront. Authors Melanie Meehan and Kelsey Sorum show you how to adapt curriculum to meet the needs of the whole child. Each chapter offers intentional steps for responsive instruction across four domains: academic, linguistic, cultural, and social-emotional. Features include: Inspiration, classroom examples, and scaffolded tips for creating individualized resources Customizable information-gathering and planning tools, classroom charts, and writing samples Space for making notes and working through ideas Links to online content, including printable templates Just as you adapt instruction to your students, this book adapts to you. The authors designed every guide, tool, and resource to be usable in its original form, or customized as you see fit. This indispensable resource will make responsive instruction actionable—and your students feel valued and heard as they recognize the possibility and power they have as writers.

Craft in the Real World

Craft in the Real World
Author: Matthew Salesses
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1948226812

This national bestseller is "a significant contribution to discussions of the art of fiction and a necessary challenge to received views about whose stories are told, how they are told and for whom they are intended" (Laila Lalami, The New York Times Book Review). The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing—including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability—and aspects of workshop—including the silenced writer and the imagined reader—Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces? Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights, Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Asian American classic No-No Boy, Salesses asks us to reimagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. After all, as he reminds us, "When we write fiction, we write the world."

Wondrous Words

Wondrous Words
Author: Katie Wood Ray
Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English (Ncte)
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1999
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Examines the theoretical underpinnings of how students learn to write from reading other writers; describes various kinds of inquiry designed to help teachers and students learn how to learn from writers; and includes thoughts from the author on writing and teaching, as well as a selection of resource materials.

Becoming a Teacher of Writing in Elementary Classrooms

Becoming a Teacher of Writing in Elementary Classrooms
Author: Mindy Legard Larson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2024-04-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1003861784

The Second Edition of Becoming a Teacher of Writing in Elementary Classrooms is an interactive learning experience focusing on all aspects of becoming-writer and teacher of writing in the Writing Studio. The Writing Studio is illustrated with authentic classroom scenarios and include descriptions of assessments, mini-lessons, mentor texts, and collaborative and individual teaching strategies. The parallel text, Becoming-Writer, allows readers to engage as writers while learning and applying writing process, practice, and craft of the Writing Studio. The new edition includes integration of preschool writers, multilingual learners, translanguaging, culturally sustaining pedagogy, social emotional learning, Universal Design for Learning and an updated companion website with teacher resources. This dynamic text supports teachers’ agency in the ongoing journey of joyful teaching and writing.

Models for Teaching Writing-Craft Target Skills (Second Edition)

Models for Teaching Writing-Craft Target Skills (Second Edition)
Author: Marcia Sheehan Freeman
Publisher: Maupin House Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1934338818

For Multiple Grades Models for Teaching Writing-craft Target Skills is your go-to guide for writing-craft instruction through exemplary and accessible literature models. Writing-craft Target Skills--those specific techniques that all good writers use to effectively craft clear and compelling fiction and non-fiction--are best taught through explicit modeling. Locating the appropriate mentor texts for every skill, however, can be a daunting and time-consuming task. This innovative resource puts more than 450 valuable literature models at your fingertips and matches them to thirty-three fundamental writing-craft Target Skills. To add variety and versatility to your K-8 writing classroom, Models for Teaching Writing-craft Target Skills includes a wide assortment of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry selections, ranging from picture books to intermediate texts. This revised and updated second edition also includes more than seventy Spanish literature models that are ideal for ESL/ELL writing-craft instruction. Save yourself time and energy by referencing four literature-model matrices, which alphabetically list fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and Spanish-text models. Each genre-specific matrix identifies multiple writing-craft skills so you can easily reference how to use many of the models to teach a variety of writing techniques. Models for Teaching Writing-craft Target Skills: Helps you fully utilize the strong connection between reading and writing; Increases the power of modeling in your writing-workshop lessons; Pre-selects and organizes a set of appropriate literature models to help you teach writing craft effectively; and Features Spanish literature models for teaching writing-craft skills to ESL/ELL students.

Crafting Writers, K-6

Crafting Writers, K-6
Author: Elizabeth Hale
Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2008
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1571107398

How do we teach elementary students to independently use the different elements of craft that are discussed and taught in lessons? We begin by honoring the reality that terms like voice, sentence fluency, and writing with detail are descriptions of where we want our students to be, not next steps on how to reach those goals. In Crafting Writers, K-6 Elizabeth Hale shows us how to identify specific elements of craft when assessing student work and planning instruction, and use them to teach students the specific craft techniques that will move them forward as writers. Liz offers practical information that teachers can use immediately in their classrooms. She also presents a concrete process for noticing craft in writing so teachers can develop and plan craft lessons based on their students' writing. Learning the techniques that make up good writing also allows teachers to see craft in many different levels of writing, a skill that is particularly powerful when conferring with below-grade-level writers. Additional chapters look closely at assessment and classroom management practices like group conferring. Most of us know good writing when we read it, but writing teachers need to know what makes it work. Filled with easy-to-use charts, and practical lessons, Crafting Writers, K-6 provides clear insight into identifying and teaching the small elements that make good writing successful.

Crafting Comparison Papers

Crafting Comparison Papers
Author: Marcia S. Freeman
Publisher: Maupin House Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0929895940

Since comparison papers require students to describe both similarities and differences, they are often used as assessment tools in just about every subject. For this reason alone, developing writers should be taught how to craft effective comparison papers. But teaching your students how to compose comparison papers also has a larger impact on their education--it prepares them to think more analytically, perform better in complex testing situations, and compare texts. In Crafting Comparison Papers, Marcia S. Freeman fully explains the four instructional steps that develop comparison skills: understanding the concept of attributes; organizing attributes for comparison; building clear, coherent comparative paragraphs; and assembling effective comparison papers. She includes lessons with specific Target Skills(TM) to support your students' progress, and she suggests timelines that will help you plan your curriculum. Throughout, Freeman's comprehensive approach and clear instructions make this book a unique and valuable resource for any teacher of developing writers.

Writing Mini-Lessons for Third Grade, Grade 3

Writing Mini-Lessons for Third Grade, Grade 3
Author: Sigmon
Publisher: Carson-Dellosa Publishing
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2008-08-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1604184892

Learn when and how to teach the Writing block using Writing Mini-Lessons for Third Grade. This 112-page book includes well-designed mini-lessons that help students succeed in their writing. During the Writing block, students write and share each day. They also observe the teacher writing and thinking about writing during the daily writing mini-lesson. This book supports the Four-Blocks(R) Literacy Model.