Teaching with focus: the writer’s craft and genres By Constance Bellamy Chiplock

Read Aloud Teaching with the Writer’s Craft or Genre approach always begins with a Read-Aloud text. Know your author. All author’s use a specific craft and genres target similar organization. Begin sampling differing author’s and “find” their explicit “craft” or focus one genre at a time. Students begin to understand what craft is after sampling authors and problem-solving what their craft is, as well as exploring different genres.

A Writer’s Craft: David Wiesner David Wiesner’s Craft focuses on setting. The sequential events of the story are organized by a tree falling down from a hurricane. The characters turn the tree into a pirate ship, a jungle, a space ship, etc. This author uses his illustrations to tell a story.

A Writer’s Craft: Eric Carle Eric Carle’s craft focuses on illustration and organization. He often focuses his craft on: life-cycle days of the week Sequential numbers

Non-Fiction The Non-Fiction writer focuses on fact. The book has organizational components such as: table of contents facts real photos index

Genres: Mystery Who dunnit? Character Development Evident Problem Searching for the Solution

Genre: Comedy Main Character Humorous Encounters a situation Problem-solves with humor Dialogue

The Perspective The Writer’s Craft, genre study or author’s study are approaches which easily can be applied to a blog. The student can blog: A writing piece modeled after an author’s craft. A writing piece modeled after a genre and that list continues—historical fiction or cartoons, etc. A comparison of pieces of a specific author. Writing a different event, ending or sequence of events as one of the characters. The examples are endless……….. Images Sources: http://www.amazon.com