Writing
Welcome to Writer’s Workshop
Writer’s Workshop is a teaching strategy that has proven to improve student writing dramatically. It is a method of teaching grammar, spelling, and mechanics all through the writing process. During the course of the year, students will create a writing resource notebook that can help them throughout middle school and even into high school. We will focus on the six traits of good writers: ideas, organization, style, fluency, voice, and conventions.
The majority of student writing will take place in the classroom, so it is crucial that any assignment leaving the classroom be brought back the very next day.
If your child misses a Writer’s Workshop activity, the notes will be available on the class blog or in the class assignment bin, but it will be impossible to convey all of the information on paper. Please be aware that absences will ultimately cause a student to miss out on valuable information.
All students will have two portfolios to be kept in the classroom. One will consist of works in progress and the other will hold all published pieces. Published Portfolios will be passed on to 7th grade teachers at the end of the year, so students will bring home graded pieces for review and then must bring them back for filing.
NARRATIVE WRITING
We have begun to write our Narrative papers together in class. The students will be bringing home shorts HW assignments to finish whatever step of the process we worked on in class that day.
I will be listing the steps in the writing process as we complete them and any notes we take in class will be loinked to this page too. (Powerpoints used are borrowed from Pete’s Powerpoint Station- link located on my Home page)
Prewrite
Brainstorm
Writing a thesis (Or main idea of the paper) Thesis Statement
Create an outline/ Organizing your paper Creating An Outline
Drafting
Rough Draft
Writing an introduction Writing Introductory Paragraphs
Writing a conclusion Writing a Conclusion
Revising
Peer Edit
Changed second rough dgraft
Publishing
Final draft
Final Draft Requirements: Students can hand write OR type their final papers. That decision is theirs. If I cannot read a student’s handwriting, I will not gade that paper.
Hand Written: Write on front of paper only, write every other line, write in blue or black INK ONLY
Typed Papers must use: Times New Roman font, size 12 font, black font ONLY, 1″ margins, and the paper must be double spaced
Check List of Items I will Collect With the Final Draft:
1. Brainstorm activity
2. Outline/List of events
3. All Rough Drafts
4. Final Draft
5. Narrative Rubric Narrative Rubric
Fictional Narrative
For our fictional narrative, we will have some areas of focus that we will incorporate into our paper. These traits will be plot, conflict, dialogue, and setting.
Plot: Plot is the storyline of a written piece of literature.
Conflict:Conflict is a clash between opposing forces in a story. The following is a powerpoint that gives information on plot and conflict. Plot and Conflict
Descriptive Language:Descriptive language is the infusion of description into your writing. As freshmen writers, the students will begin to accomplish this by adding Adjectives and Adverbs into their narrative. The guided notes and powerpoint we used to discuss Adjectives and Adverbs can be found on the Grammar tab of my blog.
Dialogue:Writers can use dialoge to drive the plot forward, or reveal information. But, there are rules that govern writing dialogue. We will discuss these as a class before the students include dialogue in their narratives. We will go over the rules that govern writing and punctuating dialogue in class. Those notes are located on the Grammar tab on my blog.
TECHNICAL WRITING
FRIENDLY LETTER
We began our Technical writing unit by learning the format and names of the sections of a friendly letter. That section was short and sweet, and we have completed writing our letters.
POETRY
We are now moving on to Poetry. We will begin by learning the difference between Prose and Poetry, and then transition into the different styles of Poetry. Once the students learn the different styles, we will cover the different types of figurative language used to write poetry. The following power points give the information we will cover in class:
Prose vs. Poetry (Pgs. 268-269 in the Reader’s Journey book)
Styles of Poetry Styles of Poetry
Figurative Language FigurativeLanguage (Literary Elements)
Song Analysis
Since all songs are poetry, the students brought in the lyrics to their favorite songs to practice looking for literary elements in that poem. They needed to follow some guides to do this. First they were supposed to take a piece of paper and fold it in half three times to break it into 8 sections.
On The Front: Label each box for Onomatopoeia, Simile, Metaphor, Hyperbole, Rhyme, Repetition/Alliteration, and Personification. Then, look for these elements in your song.
On The Song Lyrics: At the end of each line of three consecutive stanzas, write the rhyme scheme for those stanzas.
On Th Back of One of the Papers: Write three stanzas’ worth of new words (A new poem) using the same number of syllables per line and the same rhythm as the original song. In essence, write a new poem that would fit into the template of the old song.
Students without songs: I had the students that did not bring in any song lyrics the following poem to complete the same activity. The Village Blacksmith
PRACTICE 8TH GRADE WRITING ASSESSMENT
On Wednesday (1/20) and Thursday (1/21), we took a practice writing assessment. This assessment was taken to help the students prepare for the 8th Grade Writing Assessment in two years. The object is to teach the students how to go through the whole writing process in a short, timed, period of time. We used a prompt from a past 8th grade assessment.
Practice Writing Test Situation and Prompt
POEM LITERAL ANALYSIS
As a class, we looked at, and discussed, what the message was that the poet was trying to get across to the reader. This is sometimes a hard thing to determine, so we worked through five poems together. Then, the students were split into groups. Each group was given a book of poems, and they had to choose one together which they would analyze the meaning of as a group. The groups had to write the meaning of each line down, as they saw it, and then deliver the original, and translated, poems to the class.
FOLLOWING/WRITING DIRECTIONS
Writing directions to do an activity can be one of the most technical types of writing that exists. To see this fact, the students worked in pairs fist to give directions to one another, in order for their partner to create a design on the floor using paper stips. Neither person was allowed to look at what the other was doing. All students expressed how hard this activity was after they had tried it.
The next task the students had to perform for this assignment was for them to write out detailed directions for someone to perform a magic trick. These directions were to be written as if the person performing the trick had never done it before and had no ideas what they were doing. The test for these directions will be when I perform each trick in front of the class…following the student directions to a tee.
EXPOSITORY WRITING
Unpacking the standards- As a class we looked at the standards that go with writing an Expository paper. We first looked for words in the standards that we did not know the meaning of, and looked them up in the dictionary. Then, we used our new definitions to rewrite the standards in 6th grade words we understand. We did this so that the students know what standards are wrapped up in the Expository writing unit and what we are trying to learn in this unit.
Unpacking the Standards- Expository Writing
Organizing Structures- After looking at the standards for this unit, we looked at the different ways writers can organize their papers, books, or articles.
Expository Writing Organizational Structures
Evaluating Online Sources/ Plagiarism/ Taking Notes- The exercises in the Reader’s Journey workbook (Pgs. 454-467) discuss how to choose the most current and reliable online resources. These pages then relay the proper way to take notes from an online source, as well as a book source (Paraphrasing and summarizing). Finally, the activities show examples of correctly taken notes and plagiarized notes, and why it is wrong to plagiarize.
Primary/Secondary Sources- In the Reader’s Journey book (Pgs. 484-489), we looked at the differences between Primary and Secondary sources, and which are better to use while conducting research.
Research- Today in class, we started researching our Environmental Issues using Cobb Virtual Library. We will be conducting online research today and tomorrow, and we will also be researching next week in the media center for three days. I am asking the students not to research at home, unless they will be missing a day of class. Even then, please have your students use Cobb Virtual Library. I am linking a set of questions that will help to focus the students’ research. By the time they are finished with their notes, these questions should be answered.
We are nearing the end of our Expository Writing unit and we have discussed many aspects of research writing. Many of these topics we have discussed using our Reader’s Journey workbooks. Since we have worked in these books so much throughout the course of this unit, we will be taking a quiz on the topics listed below. All questions will come from the notes and information on these pages. I will not be taking questions from the readings on these pages. The readings are for practicing the concepts discussed at the beginning of each of these sections.
Expository Writing
Introduction to Research Process (Reader’s Journey pgs. 440-445)
Organizing Structures (Reader’s Journey pgs. 194-195)
Cause/Effect (Reader’s Journey pgs. 478-483)
Paraphrasing (Reader’s Journey pgs. 270-275)
Evaluating Sources/Plagiarism/Taking Notes (Reader’s Journey pgs. 454-467)
Primary and Secondary Sources (Reader’s Journey pgs. 484-489)