Teaching the Language Arts: Week 2

Week 2: Getting Ideas for the Writer’s Notebook

Last week I wrote about mentor texts, or the idea of using good books to inspire writing.  This week we read more about mentor texts and learned about some new strategies.  The video, “Writers Workshop: Time + Space + Choice = Real Writing,” brings up the idea of “writing thieves.”  Students within that classroom are taking full ideas from the books and writing their own story.  A fourth grade girl, Nina, talks about how she took the ideas of camping and “weird” things happening to the characters in order to create her own story.  It’s interesting to hear the teacher encourage this behavior, simply because when I was growing up, we were encouraged to only write original, personal ideas.  I am excited to use the idea of “writing thieves” in my classroom.  It is clear that Nina is a very strong writer because she is able to use writing styles and ideas from her favorite books, genres, and authors (Writers Workshop, 2017)

Writing new types of entries based off of a book is also a really great strategy.  In Mentor Texts, Dorfman and Cappelli (2007) give many examples of books to read as an “introduction” to a type of notebook entry.  For example, when asking the students to bring in an object and write about it, they suggest you read Aunt Flossie’s Hat (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard.  The students can get the idea that the author is writing about a hat, and be inspired to write about their own object; borrowing the style of writing if they liked that style. I love the idea of using wordless picture books as mentor texts.  The students could create their own words to the story, or even draw their own picture book and write the story to go along with it.  This would be great for a child who was not a strong reader, but who had a fantastic imagination and wanted to create their own story that they could read.

This week I read Textbook Amy Krouse Rosanthal pages 60-101 and I came up with a few ideas I could use to write in my own writer’s notebook, or that I could use to give my students more writing ideas (Rosenthal, 2016):

• Write about a time when you got a “warm fuzzy feeling”: This was inspired by the feeling I got when I read about the Craigslist man who sent the last email asking for nothing in return.

• Write about an act of kindness you have done, you have had done to you, or you hope to do in the future: Inspired by the idea of putting all the encouraging texts you send in a bottle every year.

• Log the highs and lows of your day: This can be a tough one to do with a kid if they have a really bad day, but it is to show that they can find positivity in any day.

• Times you were amazed, just to find out it wasn’t what you think it was: inspired by Rosenthal’s bewilderment moments.

Again, if you have not read the book, I encourage you to read the book and pull out your own writing ideas.

Sources:

Dorfman, L. R., & Cappelli, R. (2007). Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children’s literature, K-6. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse.

Rosenthal, A. K. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Penguin Group USA.

Writers Workshop: Time + Space + Choice = Real Writing [Video File].  2017. Retrieved From https://youtu.be/F1NWk4ExkoA