WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

Mentor Text: Teacher Writing Sample / Genre: Literary Nonfiction (Literary nonfiction informs the reader about a topic in an interesting way)
Text form: Journal entry, newspaper article, or personal letter / Audience: General Public
Learning goal:(From F & P writing continuum)
Informational writing: Writing with a focus.
  • Provide interesting details around a topic. Use a narrative structure to help readers understand information and interest them in a topic: by writing a descriptive narrative about an animal they have created and outlining its structural and behavioral adaptations.
  • Use descriptive and specific vocabulary: Use science unit vocabulary and conceptual learning accurately to enhance writing.(Habitats and Ecosystems, Grade 4)
/ Writing task:
Create a fictional animal with 2 structural adaptations for an ecosystem that you are researching and produce a written description of the animal, in the form of a journal entry, newspaper article or letter to a friend or colleague. Students are free to adapt the time period or setting to fit their narrative.

Grade level: Grade 4, Science

Background knowledge / Research: Before engaging in the writing task students will create an animal picture that fits within a pre-selected ecosystem.

Students should have an understanding of:Ecosystems, habitats, food chains/food webs, structural adaptations, behavioral adaptations.

THE LEARNING PLAN

READ / Read like a writer—Analyze a mentor text with the learning goal in mind. The Mentor text can be a book, excerpt or teacher written text.
Share the teacher sample of a journal entry (see attached page for example) with the class. Have the students listen to the text with their eyes closed, and try to visualize what they are hearing.
Once this has been done, have the students indicate words and phrases that helped them to visualize, and then determine which part(s) of speech these were – adjectives and adverbs.
THINK / Think about the writing task and make your thinking visible.
Refer back to the criteria for creating the animal, and the required elements of the writing assignment (see attached), and make a point-form list of information about the teacher-created animal. Make the list on a Word document, so that it can easily be added to/deleted.
Go through the criteria point-by-point, so that there is a complete list of information to include in the writing. You can refer back to the mentor text to check for completeness.
TALK / Explain your ideas for the writing task and your thinking to a peer or your teacher:
Once the list is created, talk about what kind of setting and/or time period you might want to write about. You can refer to things like the Indiana Jones movies, or other explorer movies to provide ideas for settings and time periods. Students choose a location that fits with their pre-selected ecosystems, so they may want to look at a world map to think of an idea for a location.
DRAFT / Write – Apply new learning to the writing task.
Demonstrate the writing process by writing a rough draft visible to students through a projector. Do not worry about spelling, grammar or other writing conventions. Focus on getting the thoughts onto the page, and including all the points from your point-form list. A trick to keeping track of the points used is to either delete the list items as you include them, or to use the strikethrough feature (on the Home ribbon, next to the Bold, Italics and Underline options).
CRAFT / Revise your writing and continue to revise based on feedback
Once you have a rough draft, use the built-in tools of the Review Ribbon to edit your work: Spelling and Grammar checker, and the thesaurus for word options.
Use whichever writing traits you wish to emphasize with your class (Ideas, voice, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions - the Trait Crate is a great resource for this…)
Read what you have written aloud, and use your ear to make sure the writing sounds correct – hearing it out loud will often pick out grammatical errors.
EDIT / Polish your writing
Now that you are happy with what is written, look at the finishing formatting: font size and font type (something that fits with the style of writing, and possibly its time period – a script-like font for something old, a techno font for something futuristic). Indent all paragraphs, use your line spacing options (if needed/desired), page margins, and make sure that things fit on the page (try not to leave a word or two hanging on a second page).
SHARE / Share your work with your audience
Read your finished product to your students. Have them listen and visualize what they have heard.
Now, have them use this process to create their own piece of writing, following the same steps.

In the plan above the teacher models the entire writing process from beginning to end. Students would then create their own piece of writing following the same steps: Think, talk, draft, craft, edit and share.

Writers workshop planning template, K. Carlisle, Living Sky School Division

Writers workshop planning template, K. Carlisle, Living Sky School Division

Grade 4 Science

Created Animal Writing Assignment

Now that you have created an animal of your own for your ecosystem, you will need to write about it. In your writing, you will need to describe the following things:

  • Size (height, length, weight)
  • Color
  • Physical appearance
  • It’s structural adaptations (you should have two different adaptations that can be seen on your picture).
  • It’s behavioral adaptation (what it does in order to survive – some kind of behavior)
  • What it eats, and where it fits into your food web/food chain

You should also have some fun with this writing! You can write this as if it’s a journal or diary entry of an explorer that finds the animal for the first time. You can write about the past, present or future.

Finally, be sure to look at your poster project rubric in your duotang to make sure you have hit all the criteria so that you get at least a Level 3 on this part of the project!

Now, get writing!! You will use the tools in Word to help edit and polish your writing once you have all your information on the page. Have fun, good luck and enjoy!

Teacher Mentor Text Sample:

Animal information:

  • 8 feet long
  • 4 feet tall
  • About 200 pounds
  • 4 legs with bare webbed feet
  • Wide flat head, with hard plates of skin on it
  • 2 rows of teeth on each jaw
  • Eyes have flaps of skin to protect them from the sand
  • Furry, and the fur is the same color as the sand
  • Moves silently on the sand
  • Tunnels into sand dunes to hide
  • Hunts at night
  • Eats scorpions, and is an apex predator

Teacher Writing Sample:

Kalahari Desert, 1861

On my latest journey into the depths of the Kalahari Desert, with my trusty assistant and guide Jaboo, I came across the most amazing creature. Tunneling its way out of the windward side of a large sand dune, a very large, furry animal made its appearance known as we made our way across the dune near its peak. The animal was about 8 feet in length, with four legs, each with a bare, webbed feet that allowed it to quickly move across the soft sand. It stood about 4 feet tall at its shoulder, with a wide, flat head that was covered with what appeared to be hard plates made of very rough skin. Based on its size, I estimate it to weigh about 200 pounds. Its mouth had dozens of sharp teeth, in two rows on each jaw. The eyes had very large flaps of skin that seemed to be able to cover the eyes, even though it had eyelids that regularly blinked to keep the sand out of its eyes. Its fur was the same color as the sand, and when the wind blew, it blended into the dunes with incredible ease. At first, both Jaboo and I thought we were seeing things, for as quickly as the animal appeared, it blended into the sandy background. It made no noise at all as it moved along the base of the dunes. When the wind stopped, it stopped, and again, it disappeared into the sand, quickly digging into the dune to hide from the hot sun.

We stopped and camped out on the spot, hoping to catch another glimpse of the strange creature we spotted earlier. Once the sun set behind the huge dunes of sand, we noticed a disturbance in the side of a nearby dune. Slowly, the creature tunneled out of the dune, and proceeded to move along the dunes, searching for small, nocturnal creatures like scorpions and other desert insects. We watched it hunt several scorpions, as these seemed to be its preferred food source. Despite being stung by the scorpions repeatedly; it did not appear to be affected by the deadly venom injected into it. We can only guess as to why this was: perhaps the skin was so tough that the venom did not get into its body. Perhaps the creature is simply immune. Without catching one, we can only guess. In honor of this historic occasion, we are naming this creature the “Briboo”. Drawings of the creature made by my companion will be forwarded on to the Royal Museum’s curator upon our return.

Respectfully submitted,

Dr. Brian Hargreaves,
Her Majesty’s African Exploration Leader

August 23, 1861

Writers workshop planning template, K. Carlisle, Living Sky School Division