Ms. Rosevear's Blog

I have found myself actively “reading like a writer” after our in class activity with Shortcut by Donald Crews last week. Taking the time to comb through the book and find both written and visual strategies that Crews used to strengthen his narrative has me paying attention to how I see this in other writing. When I read Happy Like Soccer by Maribeth Boelts, I was looking for strategies that I could related to some drafts I currently have in my Writer’s Notebook.

In class, I took the draft I talked about last week that was about going sledding at the big ditch in our neighborhood and used it for the little books we created in class.

I knew when I choose this story that I wanted to use Shortcut as a mentor text. I thoughts about the strategies that Donald Crews used to convey feeling into this short but powerful moment from his life. I knew I wanted to use the illustrations to convey the urgency of impending danger like he did. Below you can see how he used the sound of the oncoming train to convey danger and I plan to incorporate this into my story as I continue to develop it.tre

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As I was reading Happy Like Soccer, I noticed another strategy that I thought was powerful for conveying emotion to the reader. Sierra describes her feelings in a way that is relatable to most people. She took a scenario that people might not be familiar with and found a way to express her emotions in a way they could empathize with.

This is a strategy I think is so valuable for me and for my students. Dorfman & Cappelli touched on this back in Chapter 4, “…the reader is to take the unknown and compare it to the known” (2017, 83). This is a great way for writers to connect with their readers even if their story isn’t relatable. I have a specific story idea I would like to apply this to, the up and down journey of finding my wedding dress, and I’m excited to see how it strengthens the narrative!

Now that I am taking the time to read like a writer I want to know – what mentor books are you excited about? What books would you recommend I check out, for myself or to share with students, to make myself a stronger writer?

References
Dorfman, L. R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6 (2nd ed.). Portland, Maine: Stenhouse. Crews, D. (1992). Shortcut. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. Boelts, M. (2012). Happy like soccer. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

I want to start this week by sharing a post I saw on Facebook this weekend. I love Humans of New York – I have been following them for years. It is one of the most creative ways I have encountered for sharing personal stories, especially for people that normally wouldn’t share or have a platform for people to care about their stories.

As soon as I read this post, I knew I had to share it with y’all. It is a first-hand account from a child about what they do/don’t like about writing. They don’t dislike writing, they even mention the possibility of being an author one day. They just dislike being told what to write about. What a great reminder for why writer’s notebooks are so important! I don’t want my students writing to “get it over with.” I want them writing because they care about the topic and are excited to create/share their thoughts. Using ideas from their writer’s notebook is the best way to achieve this.

As I started to read Chapter 4 in Mentor Texts (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017), I felt like the Facebook post had crossed my path at the perfect time. The student that wrote about the aquarium was just trying to “get it over with.” We have to get our students to slow down before they can write a good narrative piece. I believe the first step in getting them to slow down is by getting them to care.

Their writer’s notebooks are full if ideas they care about, so how do we get them to choose an idea that they can put under a “magnifying lens” (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, 78)? The best strategy I have encountered so far is the one we used in class – flash drafts. As we discussed in class, this is a great way to just sit with an idea for a few minutes and discover what you could write about it without putting so much work into that you feel obligated to stick with it. This is where students can discover if they have enough to put this idea under a magnifying lens or if it is just a surface level story.

Below is an example of how I took a notebook idea strategy and found an idea I used to write a flash draft.

After going through this strategy, I realized that I could turn this into a strong narrative. I would have to write many more drafts and add a lot more detail but the bones of an interesting story were there. Working through this strategy made me realize that I need to do this with my students to get them to really think about a story before they decided to spend a few weeks drafting it into a narrative.

I’m sure there are more strategies out there so share them with me! What are other ways you plan to get your students to care? How will you get them from ideas to narratives?

References
Dorfman, L. R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6 (2nd ed.). Portland, Maine: Stenhouse.

I get so excited when I think about starting to use writer’s notebooks in my future classroom. When I am allowed to pick my own subject, I am always more passionate about my writing. This is how I look at writing, which allows me to say I am a writer even if I am not a published author. (Does hitting the Publish button on this blog technically make me a published author?) The freedom I have found in writing is something I want to pass on to my students and I believe the way to do this is through their writer’s notebooks.

In RE 4030, Dr. Frye introduced the idea of treating writer’s notebooks as gifts to your students. Wrap them up and tie them with a bow and a pencil. Leave a note that invites your students to use their fresh, new notebooks as a tool on their journey to becoming thriving writers. I get so excited envisioning wrapping up notebooks and the faces of my students as they open them. This will be a definite staple in my classroom. In Mentor Texts
(2017, p. 23), Dorfman & Cappelli brought up the idea of seeing writer’s notebooks as treasure chests. This is an idea I thought would pair perfectly with gifting these notebooks to my students. I am giving them a treasure chest and it is their responsibility to fill it with their own treasures! From the very first time they lay eyes on their notebooks, I want my students to feel a sense of excitement in relation to writing. It is their own to unwrap, to decorate, to fill up. It is not just a bounded stack of papers that will become lost in the chaos of a 2nd graders desk.

I want to share in this excitement with my students. I want to share my passion and love of writing. I am a firm believer in teachers never asking students to do something they wouldn’t do themselves. So, every time my students write, I will write. Every time I introduce a new strategy, I will model it. My students will see me not just as their teacher, but as a fellow writer. This is one step in creating a classroom community of writers and blurring the line of teacher and students. I can not ask them to use this notebook to find their writing voice, if I do not have and share my own with them (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, p. 14).

Once students have their notebooks, I believe, as Dr. Buchholz said, that we should spend the first few weeks of school using strategies to fill them with ideas and possible future writing topics. Just within the first two weeks of class I already feel I have so many strategies that I am excited to use! A personal favorite is getting kids to think about their names and the stories behind them. I have a super unique name, and it will be changing soon, so for me this would be fun to model for my students. I also love the idea of heart maps, which I was introduced to in RE 4030 but already have expanded my thinking around them in RE 5130! Also, the idea to have student bring in meaningful object to write about would not only giving them writing material but also allows our class to learn more about each other.

There are so many ways to open kids eyes to the endless possibilities for writing topics and I feel like I have only just learned about the tip of the iceberg. Something that was completely new to me was the idea of mentor texts. I had never stopped to think just how much of an impact a book could have on just generating ideas for writing. I get excited by all the examples in Mentor Texts (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017) and I know there are so many more books out there that they don’t even mention. I feel like any children’s book could have a purpose in getting students to think about their own writing. I just get so excited thinking about the possibilities!

References
Dorfman, L. R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K – 6 (2nd ed.). Portland, Maine: Stenhouse.