1. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop

2. Homework: read chapters 1-2 for tomorrow.
Realistic Fiction Day 1
Teaching Point: Good readers know the characteristics of realistic fiction.
It could happen
It has a realistic setting
Characters are true to life
The story has characters, setting, a problem and a solution
Small details may not be true
Active Engagement: Read your realistic fiction book for the rest of the hour. Keep the characteristics in mind when you are reading.
Homework: read chapters 1-2 for tomorrow.
Thurs 1/22 Hand out books and read chap 1-2

3. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 2
Teaching Point: Good Readers ask themselves “Could this really happen?”
Active Engagement – In your journal write at least a half page on the misunderstanding between Miss Caroline, Walter, and Scout. Have you ever been caught in a situation when your help has made matters worse for all involved? (Chapter 2, page 28) Be prepared to discuss this tomorrow in class.
Independent practice: Please read your realistic fiction book for the rest of the hour.
Homework: Complete reading chapters 3-4 for tomorrow’s class.
In your journal record at least three events that could really happen and explain why you think each could have happened. These could be any events that occurred in the first four chapters.
Read chap 3-4

4. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 3
Teaching Point: Good readers recognize the “Aha Moment” –a character’s realization of something that shifts his actions or understanding of himself, others, or the world around him/her.
An Aha Moment is a Signpost. It can be recognized when certain phrases are used, usually expressing suddenness, like:
“Suddenly I understood…”
“It came to me in a flash that…”
“The realization hit me…”
“In an instant I knew…”
Active Engagement – Read all of page 49 and decide what the “Aha Moment is on this page. Turn and talk to your elbow partner.
Independent Practice: Attach the Signpost Log to your journal. Find at least two Aha Moments in your realistic fiction book and record them.
The Signpost Log is your Exit Slip for today!
Homework: Read Chapters 5-7 for Monday
Copies of Aha Moment
Chap 4 page 49 hot steams – Scout Contradicts Jem, Aha is that Scout realizes Jem is punishing her for contradicting him.

5. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 4
Teaching Point: Readers of realistic fiction are able to step inside different character’s perspectives.
Active Engagement: We will look at a passage from TKM and discuss the experience from Scout’s perspective.
Independent Practice: Now, “Step Inside” the character you were assigned (look on the sheet under Viewpoint). Fill in the chart completely and then choose your strongest response. On the sticky note jot down the strongest response and place it on the poster in the appropriate box.
Homework: Read Chapter 8-9 for tomorrow.
Chapter 6 – gun shot perspective of nathan radley, jem, dill, atticus- Use Step Inside Thinking sheet. Model this form of Visible Thinking using the perspective of Scout.
Need Copies of Step Inside with names and post its. Poster of Step Inside chart.

6. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 5
Teaching Point: Good readers recognize “Words of the Wiser” – the advice or insight a wiser character, who is usually older, offers about life to the main character.
Words of the Wiser is a signpost. It can be recognized when the main character and another character are off by themselves, in a quiet, serious moment. The wiser figure shares his/her wisdom or advice in an effort to help the main character with a problem or a decision.
Active Engagement: Let’s look at page 39. Can we find an example of Words of the Wiser?
Independent Practice: Attach the Signpost Log to your journal and find another example of Words of the Wiser in your realistic fiction book and record it.
The Signpost Log is to be put in your journal!
Homework: Read Chapters for tomorrow’s class.
Atticus Chap 9 Pg 39 – Don’t let them get your goat
Pg 101

7. Homework: Read Chapters 12-13 for tomorrow’s class
Realistic Fiction Day 6
Teaching Point: Readers of Realistic Fiction look at the author’s craft and then figure out how these deliberate craft moves advance the author’s purpose.
Active Engagement: Look at the photo “Dorthea Lange Migrant Mother”. Think for a moment. What message do you think this photographer is sending? Write about what you notice about this photo. Be ready to discuss this.
Narrative writers use techniques to send their message.
Let’s look at the second chart for today “Narrative Writers Aim Toward Goals…”
Independent Practice: Make a chart in your notebook that looks like the one on the next slide. Skim through your books and find “Craft Moves” Harper Lee uses to reach her goals. Find three pieces of evidence that focus on a chapter or character. You may work with a partner if you choose.
Homework: Read Chapters for tomorrow’s class
Active Engagement script: after students have written say: What you noticed isn’t about the content but the craft. Remember that authors, like photographers, convey more through their craft than through their content. Authors like photographers do things on purpose. An author doesn’t throw a simile or repeat a phrase (again and again) for no reason. The author uses technique, just as the photographer does when she turns the mother’s face this way or that, to convey a message. Hand out Chart Narr Writers Use Techniques Such As…

8. The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

9. Craft Moves Craft Move Evidence Goal Metaphor
Ch. 5 (pg. 59) compares women to sin
Introduce characters, provide setting
Personification
Ch. 8: fire siren is screaming, the fire silently devoured Miss Maudie’s house
Build a mood

10. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 7
Teaching Point: Good readers recognize “Contrasts and Contradictions” – a sharp contrast between what we would expect and what we observe the character doing or behavior that contradicts previous behavior or well-established patterns.
Contrasts and Contradictions are a signpost. These can be recognized when a character behaves or thinks in a way we don’t expect, or an element of a setting is something we would not expect.
Active Engagement: Let’s look at page 102. Can we find an example of Contrasts and Contradictions?
Independent Practice: Attach the Signpost Log to your journal and find another example of Contrasts and Contradictions in your realistic fiction book and record it.
The Signpost Log is to be put in your journal!
Homework: Read Chapters for tomorrow’s class.
Page 102 Chapter 9 - Scout dropping hands and not fighting Cecil – first time she ever walked away from a fight.
She then contrasts herself again by punching Francis

11. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 8
Teaching Point: Good readers recognize “Tough Questions” – questions a character raises that reveal his or her inner struggles.
Tough Questions are a signpost. These can be recognized when phrases expressing serious doubt or confusion are used.
“What could I possibly do to…”
“I couldn’t imagine how I could cope with…”
“How could I ever understand why she…”
“Never had I been so confused about…”
Active Engagement: Let’s look at page 54. Can we find an example of a Tough Question?
Independent Practice: Attach the Signpost Log to your journal and find another example of a Tough Question in your realistic fiction book and record it.
The Signpost Log is to be put in your journal!
Homework: Read Chapters over break.

12. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 9
Teaching Point: Readers of narrative writing are able to write about their reading.
Active Engagement: Let’s read the following quotes together:
Pages 52-54
Pages
Pages
Independent Practice: Identify the signpost or the technique of author’s craft used in the quotes above. Explain fully what this item means in the book or what message Harper Lee was trying to send to her audience. Write at least one page on the passage you chose in your journal.
Homework: Read Chapters for tomorrow’s class.

13. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 10
Teaching Point: Readers of realistic fiction recognize symbolism.
Active Engagement – Watch the video. Notice and note any symbols you may recognize in To Kill a Mockingbird. Be ready to share with the class.
Independent Practice: Write a paragraph in your journal on how Harper Lee uses symbolism to reach one of her craft goals. Refer to your “Narrative Writers Aim Toward Goals Such As” chart in your journal from Day 6.
Homework: Read Chapters for tomorrow’s class.
Mockingbird Quotes

14. Day 10 Homework
In your journal, write one page on one of the following prompts. Use the charts from Day 6 to help you.
Identify three different techniques that Harper Lee used to reach one specific goal and explain.
Identify one technique that Harper Lee used to reach three different goals and explain.

15. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 11
Teaching Point: Narrative writers use one or multiple craft moves to reach a goal in their writing.
Active Engagement: We look through our sticky notes to see if we noticed and noted one particular craft move used by Harper Lee throughout the book or if we noticed and noted multiple craft moves used to reach one goal.
Independent Practice: Now go to your books and look through your sticky notes and decide if you are going to focus your essay on one craft move throughout the book or multiple craft moves focusing with one purpose or goal. If you don’t have a lot of sticky notes, now is the time to add more.
Homework: Finish the book and add to your sticky notes. We will begin drafting our papers tomorrow.
Show outline Have copies of both organizational pattern outlines ready for students.

16. Realistic Fiction Reader’s Workshop Day 12
Teaching Point: Readers of narrative writing are able to write about their reading using all they have learned about writing essays from today and everyday.
Active Engagement: Yesterday we looked at our sticky notes and decided on either a character to focus on or a particular technique of Author’s Craft. Today we will organize our essays in an outline and begin our rough drafts.
Independent Practice: Now go to your books and look through your sticky notes to start to organize your thoughts. Which outline will you use? Complete your chosen outline and start your rough draft to be completed tonight.
Homework: Tonight use your outline to write a first draft and be prepared to share and revise tomorrow.
Drafting all hour and checking outlines.

17. Drafting Day
No Teaching Point today. If you haven’t checked your thesis with me yet, that should be the first thing after I take attendance.
We will be checking rough drafts in as a grade by the end of the hour. If you did it last night as assigned, you will get an A. If not, you need to complete it by the end of the hour for partial credit.