Enrich Exit Project Writing with Technology Publishing Online Series Subject Session X
Focusing Questions How can we use mentor texts to help us come up with engaging and appropriate titles? How can we use the Web to publish?
Instruction
Framing The Session Writing can be strengthened and audience engaged by using an engaging and appropriate title and a compelling blurb. Internet-based sources for appropriate mentor texts can illustrate how other writers crafted their titles and blurbs.
Teaching An effective title tells what the article is going to be about. It also puts a question in the readers’ minds, something that they’ll want to have answered by the end of the piece. A catchy subtitle or abstract will tell the readers what they’re going to be learning about. One of the strategies writers use when creating titles is to use a question subtitle to attract the reader.
Teaching When adapting this session for students, it is essential to provide examples of how other writers have effectively used each of the above-mentioned title/blurb techniques to engage their audiences.
Teaching Mentor texts should be carefully selected with the following criteria in mind: Do the mentor texts clearly illustrate my teaching point? Do the mentor texts mirror the style, voice, and content of the type of document that needs to be produced? Are the mentor texts on appropriate interest and reading levels for my students?
Guided Practice Open your Web browser to New York Times online: Which article grabs your attention? What about the title attracts you?
Work Time
Getting Started Now you will find mentor texts for at least three different kinds of titles, using the recommended Web sites. You will bookmark, download, or embed them, and revise the titles/abstracts of your own reports of information, and then work with your writing partners to select the most engaging one.
Work Time You will now find mentor texts for at least three different kinds of titles, using the recommended Web sites. Bookmark, download, or hyperlink them, and revise the titles/abstracts of their own reports of information. Work with your writing partners to select the most engaging one.
Work Time Revise the title/blurb in your own document using the strategy you’ve learned and observed in mentor texts. Once you have found mentor texts and revised your title a couple of different ways, share your work with the group. Discuss which title/blurb is most engaging to them, and which mentor texts were most appropriate. Create a Writing the City account and post your published piece! Make sure to select a theme that says “Comments Allowed”—this will be important in the next session!
Share
Below “Engaging and Appropriate Titles,” come up and write your titles on the SmartBoard. Discuss craft techniques noticed in these titles (alliteration, word play, etc.). Share
How does this work address the questions that began the session? Answers
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