Inverted Triangle

Recently in my class "Teaching the Language Arts," we have been talking about how to help our students choose topics for writing.  While reading chapter 3 of "Mentor Texts," the author gives lesson plans for teaching students how to come up with a writing topic.  One that I had never seen or used before, was the inverted triangles.  This strategy used an upside-down triangle to help students get from a list of broad topics, to the one story they would like to tell.

In class we talked about how important modeling is.  The importance of stopping to think is also highly important, so that students don't begin to wonder why it comes so easily to the teacher, but it is so challenging for them.  We have to think, too!  Therefore, I tried out the inverted triangle and did a small writing from it, while modeling for my roommate.  I stopped to think, I crossed out words when I made an error (which was a lot in the beginning of the writing), and said my sentences out loud as I wrote them.  Even just in front of my roommate, it was a challenge to think, wait, and then write.  However, I think the biggest challenge for me was breaking the habit of erasing!  I didn't realize how instinctive it was for me to flip my pencil over.  After this practice round, I have promised myself that I will either practice not erasing more often, or I will always write in pen when I model for my students.  On that note, I need to find a PERFECT pen.  I have always liked to write in my planner in pretty pen colors, but I have never liked to write in pen on anything else.  I struggle with perfectionism, and the pencil allows me to correct my mistakes.  However, I heard a classmate tell a story about finding the perfect pen this week, and I am now on the hunt (if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment below)!

Here is my first trial of the inverted triangle lesson.  I knew I wanted to write about my cats, because they are something I KNOW about, CARE about, and am CURIOUS about.  While I have hundreds of stories I could tell

about Rory and Roo, I was able to choose one cat (Rory) and then think of a story that I tell about her often and that would be easy to write about.  She loves to play, but more specifically, she LOVES to play fetch.

As you can see, I chose to make my triangle have a legend, telling me what each level of the triangle represents.  When I teach this strategy to my students, I will be teaching them that each step gets them closer to their writing topic; I will use this type of key.  When practicing this method a few times, the students will no longer need the key to remember what each color means, but the colors will guide them in knowing they are getting closer to their story.

Next, I wrote a small (around 3rd grade level) entry about Rory playing fetch:

Again, I struggled when I was writing this in front of my roommate.  While I had the story in my head, I did not write it down before modeling it.  There is a benefit in this; the students can see that a first draft does not always turn out like we want it to.  However, next time, I think it will be really helpful for me to have the story written down in front of me (out of the sight of the students) so that my story will progress more smoothly and not be so choppy.