WRITING OVERVIEW
Writing Workshop: Students learn that they have stories in their lives that matter. They learn how to write quality personal narratives about the small moments in their lives. They learn strategies to generate their own ideas for writing, to focus in on a small moment, to make a movie in their mind, and to write with crystal clear clarity. They write in the moment – including tiny details to help their stories unfold step-by-step. They study published writing to learn techniques for improving their own work. Students write several drafts, and then they choose one story that matters the most to them to revise and publish. They develop the heart of their story by adding details and create alternate leads and endings. They learn that revision is about finding and developing the potential in a piece of writing. Students will continually share their writing and celebrate each other’s work.
Narrative Writing: Students learn that writers carry with them and draw on a cumulative repertoire of strategies, and that any new work that writers do should demonstrate all they have already learned to do as writers. They continue their work in personal narrative writing and learn how to lift the quality of their writing by bringing forth more significance in their writing. They learn strategies for generating narrative entries that evoke more powerful stories. They look closely at the ways in which published writers create texts that matter and use them as models for their own writing. Students learn that writers often expand their small moment stories by putting stories (or scenes) together to create a beginning, a middle, and an end. They learn that telling the internal story is as important as telling the external story, and that the same story can be told in various ways depending on the point of view and the theme the writer wants to bring out. They also learn that including scenes from the past and the future strengthens a piece of writing. Students use a story mountain as a graphic organizer to plan and revise their personal narratives, and then they publish their writing and share it at an author celebration.
Essays: Students are introduced to the format of a non-narrative – an essay. Students write a personal essay in which they advance a theme of personal significance by arguing or stating a claim. After collecting possible seed ideas, they select one idea and revise it until they’ve made a provocative, clear, compelling claim, or thesis statement. They learn how to elaborate on that idea by generating subordinate ideas using the framework of boxes and bullets to organize their work. They provide a few parallel ideas that can be reasons, examples, or parts of the whole to support their claim and then elaborate on these ideas. They write body paragraphs that include mini-stories, lists, facts, observations, and quotations from various sources to support their thesis. Students learn how transition words, introductions, and conclusions add cohesion to their writing. They share their essays by reading them aloud in small groups and celebrating their growing accomplishments as writers.
Realistic Fiction: Students write fictional narratives by imagining stories they wish existed in the world. Students choose a seed idea and begin developing it by creating external and internal traits of their characters. Then they draft scenes that show the characters’ motivations and struggles through little small moment stories. Students plan their stories against a story mountain framework, and create obstacles for the characters as they climb toward their goal. Students study published texts to flesh out their characters, to revise their leads, and to write powerful endings. They learn that fiction writers use the setting to ground their stories, and that developing the setting can help them to convey tone in their stories. Students revise and edit their stories by rereading them with various lenses. They publish their fictional stories in a class anthology of short stories and share with peers in an author celebration.
Mystery: Students explore the elements of the mystery genre as they read and listen to a variety of mysteries. They develop a believable main character by determining his/her internal and external features. They consider various plots that are typical of mysteries and choose one to write about. Students use a story mountain organizational framework to develop the plot of their mystery. They include suspects and sidekicks, and develop these characters internally and externally. They develop the characters’ motivations and struggles, describe scenes, and create tension and suspense by referring to mentor texts. Students write with careful attention to detail by including clear descriptive words. They create the crime scene by including clues that are not too obvious, and they decide how the clues will be discovered. They write about the suspects and their alibis, and go through the process of eliminating suspects. Students develop the scenes for their mysteries by adding actions between characters and details about the setting. They solve the mystery and write about how the story ends. They revise and edit their mysteries by rereading their drafts through various lenses, such as showing the passage of time and checking their spelling. They write a catchy title and publish their mysteries in booklet form. Then they celebrate by sharing their completed mysteries with the class.
Historical Fiction: Students listen to and read historical fiction stories to learn about the genre. They begin by creating a character that portrays the thoughts, motivations, and conflicts of a historical period. They select a narrator who the reader will trust and then include details about the time, place, and events that show an accurate account of history. Students understand that historical fiction stories have shifts in time and place, and they learn how to use foreshadowing and flashbacks in their own writing. They plan with a storyboard to help them envision the plot of the story. Then they write their stories from start to finish, but remain open to changes. Students revise by rereading, cutting, adding, or reorganizing their stories as they strive to make them believable and historically accurate. They use a critical eye as they reread many times looking for one item on an editing checklist at a time. Students publish their stories and share them with an audience in a celebration of their work.
Literary Essay: Students learn that in order to write a literary essay, they first need to read as deeply as possible, to experience a story as intensely as possible. They notice the details of a story, and let those details lead them to develop fresh, provocative ideas. They pay special attention to a character’s traits, motivations, struggles, and changes in a story. Students consider issues in their own lives, and then make personal connections between their lives and a story they are reading. They write a thesis that is interesting and defensible with evidence from the beginning and from the end of the text. They use stories, summaries and/or authors’ craft as evidence to support their claim. Students examine published literary essays and identify the parts, noticing how they are put together. Then they draft their own essay by linking the support evidence into a cohesive whole, by using repetition of phrases or lines to hold the essay together, and by adding introductory and closing paragraphs. Students celebrate their finished work by reading and discussing each others’ literary essays in the form of book talks.
Persuasive Essay: Students explore the genre of a persuasive essay. They begin by studying mentor texts to determine the author’s purpose, the argument, and how the text structure supports the author’s reasoning. They learn how to build a solid argument with strong leads, supporting evidence, and convincing examples. Students consider ideas from a variety of sources and choose one that they can create a strong argument for and that they feel passionate about. They write a quality thesis and then use a split log to collect information to support their claim. They learn how to cite their sources by creating a bibliography. Then they plan the sections of their essay with boxes and bullets by listing their reasons and elaborating on each idea. Students create parallelism by writing mini-stories and lists that are angled to illustrate their thesis. They organize their writing into a structure and order that makes sense and use transitional words and key words from their thesis to connect their ideas. Students craft their introduction and conclusion to establish importance, and they share their completed essays with a classroom audience.
Research Project: Students plan research projects based on their own curiosity and passion for knowledge. They create reports, articles, essays, podcasts, speeches, or other types of informational writing or presentations based on a teacher-approved narrowed focus question and hypothesis. They begin by asking questions to clarify and focus an idea, and then use a variety of print and internet sources to gather facts and information. They learn the importance of evaluating the information they collect from internet sources. They also use surveys, interviews, and their own observations to gather data that answers their questions and supports their ideas. Students learn how to sift through information and determine what is important, what is interesting, and what is irrelevant. They sort and evaluate their facts to determine if they have the right information or enough information and revise their questions as they learn more about their ideas. They pay attention to visual elements in texts and learn how to include them in their research projects to convey information. Students paraphrase and organize information, draw conclusions, collect quotes, create a bibliography, and consider various ways to present the findings of their research. Then they plan, produce, and present their research projects and share them with others.
Poetry: Students do research to determine the characteristics of poems. They explore the use of sentences, lines, stanzas, rhyme, and feeling in various poems. They learn to distinguish between dramatic poems that are meant to be read aloud, lyric poems that describe an observation, and narrative poems that tell a story. Students read poems to learn how poets use line breaks, descriptions, lists, stories, questions, dialogue, observations, onomatopoeia, alliteration, metaphors, sensory details, shape, pacing, and repetition to craft poems. They learn the importance of word choice, the power of using specific nouns and verbs, and the nature of connotation as they write. They also learn about various forms of poetry including free verse, concrete poems, haiku, and that these forms have “rules” or traditions that poets follow. Students write several poems about a topic that is meaningful to them and create an anthology of poems. They also contribute a poem to a class anthology. Students practice reading their poems aloud and learn how the cadence and rhythm contribute to the sound of their poems. They rework their poems to be sure that their ideas are clear and that every word carries the right meaning and sound. When their anthologies are completed, students share their poems with others and celebrate.
Mentor Texts:
Fifth grade writers explore mentor texts as they generate ideas and experiment with notebook entries to develop personal narratives based on real experiences or events from their lives. They analyze mentor texts to envision possibilities for how they might use these crafting techniques in their own writing. Students learn strategies to focus in on a memorable experience, to make a movie in their mind, to orient the reader, and to write clearly. They determine the most important part of the story and organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally using a story mountain. They describe their characters using details and figurative language using mentor texts as models. Students use dialogue, description, and pacing to develop experiences and events. They also use concrete words and phrases, sensory details, the internal story, and movement through time to convey experiences and events precisely. They learn how to use paragraphing to support their efforts at elaboration. Students choose one entry that matters the most to them to draft, revise, edit, and publish. They provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experience and learn how to eliminate extraneous details from their writing. Revision involves rereading for meaning and clarity and effective use of words, phrases, and clauses. Editing involves checking for capitals, ending punctuation, the spelling of high-frequency words, and inappropriate shifts in verb tense. The unit culminates when writers share their published writing and celebrate each other’s accomplishments as writers.