Writing
Lucy Calkins
Breathing Life into Essays
The Plan for the Unit
· Student writers learn to generate lists of people, places, issues or passions and then select one item and generate ideas about it.
· Student writers learn that one way to elaborate on their ideas is to use the conversational prompts they have used to grow ideas in book talks, phrases such as in addition… another example is… and the important thing is… to think and write more about their first ideas.
· Student writers select a seed idea. This becomes their thesis statement.
· Student writers generate a plan for an essay by considering ways to elaborate on their thesis. Writers might add the transitional phrase because… to their thesis statement and then generate several reasons. These support ideas (topic sentences) are each written on separate sheets of paper.
· Student writers construct one portion of the essay at a time. For each topic sentence (reason), support material is given to strengthen the thesis statement.
· Student writers learn to write introductory and concluding paragraphs.
Day 1
Teaching Goal: Writers will recognize the genre they will be writing - Non-Narratives (Essays).
Student writers will learn strategies writers use to collect ideas for writing essays.
· Essays are a kind of non-narrative. Non means ‘not’; the writing we do will not be the same as narratives.
· What do non-narratives (essays) contain? (display as a chart)
Characteristics of Non-Narratives (Essays)
· Non-narratives are organized by ideas. (They might go, “I think this one thing, I also think this other thing, and furthermore, I think this third thing.”)
· Non-narratives are held together by an idea that is developed across the whole text.
· Non-narratives are written so the reader can think about the topic.
· Non-narrative pieces are not organized by a chronological sequence but instead by different reasons or different examples.
· Essays have sections or parts.
· Often there is a sentence or two toward the start of an essay that lays out the main idea of the essay.
· When generating ideas for essay entries, start with a subject –a person, place, or thing- that matters to you. This time, don’t list small moments (as in personal narratives); rather, list ideas related to the subject.
· Example:
My Dad
· one of my most important teachers
· always sees the positive side of things
· helped me care about school
My Mom
· takes care of me when I’m not feeling well
· cooks my favorite meals
· I can tell her anything
Active Engagement: Work with a clock partner to generate and list at least 4 opinion statements (cannot be facts) relating to a person. Write those ideas in in “Idea Notebooks”.
Gather as a group to share and discuss.
Day 2
(continue generating and listing ideas for essay writing)
· Writers elaborate upon a thesis by discussing the reasons for their claim.
(person)
Pro athletes should/should not get paid as much as they do
· (3 reasons for opinion)
(place)
People should go to the movie theater instead of renting
· (3 reasons for opinion)
(thing/issue)
Cell phones should/should not be allowed in cars
· (3 reasons for opinion)
Smoking should not be allowed in restaurants
· (3 reasons for opinion)
Bikes are fun
· (3 reasons for opinion)
Working with our second-grade reading buddies is fun
· we get to teach them to read
· we get to pick cool books to read with them
· they look up to us
(There are many examples on p. 95; Session VII; Framing Essays in Breathing Life Into Essays -Calkins.)
Review and discuss ideas as a group.
Day 3
Teaching Goal(s): Students will read mentor text examples of 5 paragraph essays.
Writers reread their writing to find or invent a seed idea -a thesis.
· Read sample essay pieces: “A Dog is man’s best friend.”…
and I am a movie fanatic. …
· Identify the claim (thesis) and three reasons in each essay.
(There are also more examples on the CD-ROM of student written essays with a thesis statement and topic sentences for each claim.)
Active Engagement: Writers will reread their idea notebooks to select a seed idea for an essay. Look for an idea –or a claim- that you want to advance, explore or defend.
o Write that idea (also called a claim or thesis) in a sentence or two. This sentence states the idea you want to develop.
Examples: Schools should have gym more.
My dog is my best friend.
It’s hard switching schools.
o Try writing the sentence in a different way(s).
Day 4
Teaching Goal: Using conversational prompts (talking about their ideas) will help writers stay with their essay topics for long stretches of time.
· Writers use phrases to push themselves to say more when writing essays –extend thoughts.
· The conversational prompts help us talk back to our own ideas; push ourselves to grow ideas.
o restate what you are saying
o helps you to be more precise
o say it in various ways
(Display chart of thought prompts) This is a legal-sized document, so if you want it on one sheet you’ll need to use that proportion paper.
Pushing Our Thinking
In other words…
Therefore…
This makes me feel…
The important thing about this is…
As I say this I am realizing…
What I want you to realize is…
One example is…
This shows…
Another example is…
All in all what I am trying to say is…
Because of this I am going to…
Active Engagement: Begin writing essay by writing the paragraphs that are the reasons for your claim (thesis). –similar to how we wrote the Response to Reading model essay
Day 5
Active Engagement: Continue writing middle three paragraphs of essay that state the reasons for your claim (thesis). Each essay should be written on a separate sheet of paper. Follow the same procedure we used when we wrote the model essay together about job responsibilities of being a scientist in Madagascar.
Share as a group examples of how “thought prompts” were used to restate ideas.
· Writers will use the Smart document camera to show their writing to the class and read aloud the section(s) that include thought prompts.
Day 6/7
Teaching Goal: Students will learn ways writers commonly open and close essays.
· Writers use several phrases to help create introductions and conclusions for their essays.
o Essayists want both the introduction and closing paragraphs to say to readers, “This essay is really important. Listen up!”
(display chart on which a few common phrases for introductions and conclusions of essays are revealed)
Ways to Start an Essay
· Tell a story about one person needing the information this essay will convey. What (that person) and others need to know is that…
· Many people (don’t know, don’t think, don’t realize) but I’ve (come to know, think it’s important)…
· Have you ever (wondered/wanted to know)…? I have found…
· Raise a question that people ask… and show that this essay will answer it.
· At the end of an essay, essayists want to say to their readers that now that I know something, I will act differently, or other people should act differently. You might fit what you want to say into phrases like these.
Ways to End an Essay
· I realize that…
· This makes me think…
· I realize that when I …, I feel…
· Other people should care about this because…
· This is important because…
· Writers use introductions and conclusions to help readers grasp the importance of the essay’s thesis.
(There are quite a few student-written examples of introduction and closings in Breathing Life Into Essays -Calkins; Session XVI: Writing Introductions and Conclusions -pp. 201-203)
Active Engagement: Write a few possible introductions and a few possible conclusions. Then choose the ones that best make your case that your thesis is important and should be listened to.
Day 8
Teaching Goal: Writers will put their materials together in way that suggests logically sequenced information and transition words. Turning scraps of paper into an outline.
· When all the pieces of the essay are written (on separate sheets of paper), those materials need to be assembled together.
o The writer should have a reason for arranging the pieces in a certain order. As pieces are reread and laid out, think about how the bits relate to each other and about the impression I want to give my reader.
§ Sometimes the essayists decide to put the strongest evidence for the claim first, to hook the reader in and last, to leave a strong memory.
§ Sometimes the essayists decide to make categories with their information.
o The writer should use transitional words that ties one piece of material onto the next
· Every time you want to build a draft of an essay, you need to figure out a structure, an order, for the materials you’ve collected.
Active Engagement: Students will continue writing the pieces of their thesis driven essays. All five pieces will be pieced together in a way that makes sense to the writer, how the pieces relate to one another, and how transitional words tie one piece into the next.