BALANCED LITERACY Session 5 January 7, 2009 Danna & Leslie

Norms Be an ACTIVE participant –Make comments –Ask Questions –TALK/CONVERSE/SHARE Have a positive attitude –Embrace something new –Be open to learning –Small steps make a big difference Our time is precious –Take care of your needs –Side bar only when necessary about content –Be prepared Make a Commitment to Balanced Literacy –Be on time and present at all meetings. –Do your best to take what you learned back to the classroom.

Agenda 1)Wiki Review 2) Architecture of a Mini-Lesson 3) Reaching Struggling Writers by Lucy Calkins- Literature Circles 4) Song & Journal Entry

The Architecture of Effective Mini-Lessons Connection Teach Active engagement Link Mid-workshop teaching point After the workshop share

A Simple, Sparse Minilesson That Could Come Early in a Unit on Personal Narrative Writing: Finding Stories Inside of Everyday Occurrences. Connection: So writers, yesterday I taught you that writers collect stories in your writer’s notebooks, and you have been collecting lots of stories. Nice job. Yesterday as I went around and conferred with you, however, some of you were saying that you couldn’t think of any more stories to collect. Some of you sat for a long time thinking and getting very little writing done. This should never really happen because each day of your lives contains stories that you could write in your notebook. Today I am going to teach you that one way writers come up with ideas for writing is that we can make a timeline of what we did in a day, or a morning, and then we can look back over our timelines and realize that the little dots on them could each be a story.

Teaching: Let me show you what I mean. I’m going to close my eyes and remember what I did yesterday after school. As I remember each event, I’m going to write it down on my timeline in my notebook. (Teacher closes eyes to remember and jots ideas down on a timeline.) I want you to notice how I remember things in the order they happened, and I want you to notice what I write down and what I don’t write down. -“I took the train home,” so I’ll write ‘train home.’” -“When I came out of the station, I got caught in the rain, so I’ll write ‘rain.’” -“I cooked a tortilla for dinner, so I’ll write, ‘tortilla.’” -“I watched TV so I’ll write, ‘TV.’” Now I reread my timeline and think, “Is there one dot that matters especially to me (or may be two?) And I am realizing that I could write a good story about getting caught in the rain. I think it would start, “I came up from the subway to see rain everywhere. I opened my umbrella and started walking down the side walk. Everywhere, there were puddles. I tried to walk around them but I couldn’t, so I finally gave up and just walked right through them. Soon my socks were sopping wet. I realized, “Why and I worrying about staying dry under this umbrella?’ Soon, I was walking in the rain, totally and completely wet.” Did you notice how I just took part of my day, coming home, and made a timeline of everything that happened in order? I didn’t write it all down; I just wrote a note on each thing. Then I reread my timeline and thought, “Of all the dots on my timeline, which would make a good story?” and then I thought of a whole story about that one, everyday little thing.—Getting caught in the rain.— Whenever you go to write a true story, you can do the same thing.

Active Engagement: Let’s try it together. I was thinking we could write about yesterday after lunch. So first I just remember what happened and write a time line: “Hmmmm. We came up to the room, we came in and sat down in the meeting area, I told you a box had come in the mail, we opened the box and saw it was books, we put them on the shelf, we had art, then we went home.” So now you would each do what writers do and reread the time line and ask, “Of all the dots, is there one of two that matter most?” and then tell the whole story of that dot out to your friend. Students turn and talk. I heard Sari say, (teacher says an improved version of what one child said.)

Link: So writers, let’s add this strategy to our chart of “How writers get ideas for writing.” Remember it already says…….Now let’s add….” Today, you’ll all be collecting more entries in your writer’s notebooks. Remember, as you do that, that you can draw on any one of these strategies—or you can invent your own.

Have you ever heard these words come out of your students mouths?

Literature Circles 1)Read the chapter and make note of the ideas that you find helpful for reaching our struggling students. (15 minutes) 2)Discuss the chapter with your group and make a poster with information from the chapter that you want to share with the rest of our colleagues. Add additional ideas that you have generated with your group to remedy this problem. (15 minutes) 3) Share posters and ideas. (20 minutes)

“If Today was your Last Day” by: Nickleback Listen to the song and write down lyrics/quotes that are meaningful to you. Choose one and write about it in your journal. Share with a partner.