3 Middles That Make Sense
Writers Workshop Daily Plan
1. Mini-Lesson Focus: Procedural Process Trait Conventions
ELACC4W3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
b. Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.
Pacing: Middles that Make the Most Sense: In this minilesson, students will learn about pacing and how a writer needs to pay attention to the amount of details he/she writes during the middle of his/her story. If you don’t happen to have Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett, any favorite picture book will do—adapt this lesson for your needs! (See bottom boxes for other suggested texts.) To begin the lesson read the book aloud to your students, emphasizing, “Who do you think Daisy will meet next?”
Once you and your students have thoroughly enjoyed Brett’s story as a whole piece of text, go back and re-read just the pages in the center where Daisy meets the animals. Point out how each animal is given equal time in the story, and how a fairly equal amount of details and sentences are used to describe the encounters. In good writing, this is called “pacing”. Show students the attached story on an overhead. Discuss the quality of the story. They will probably think it’s a decent story. Have them notice the title. Count up the number of sentences that actually tell about the narrator AT Disneyland. Count up the number of sentences in the second paragraph. Discuss that the narrator spent too much time talking about what he packed and too little time on the actual topic of his paper! (Maybe he was too tired from all the writing he did about what he packed!)
Tell the class that during Writer’s Workshop today they are going to get to pick three animals that they meet while floating down the Chattahoochee River. (If you read Daisy Comes Home--If you choose another book, model your writing after it.) Pay special attention to the amount of time spent describing the encounter with each animal—they should be about equal. They should have three short paragraphs, one for each animal. As a class, you can come up with an introduction and conclusion together and even make it into a class book… On the Chatahoochee… this lesson will probably take at least two class periods.
2. Status of Class
3. Student Writing/Teacher Conferring
4. Author Share: Student Teacher
Have one or two students share their work so far. Discuss pacing of each piece.
My Trip to Disneyland
“Woo-hoo!” my sister screamed. My parents had just told us that we were going to finally get to go to Disneyland….and we were leaving the next morning! We were so excited that we immediately ran up to our rooms to pack our bags for the long car ride.
I found my favorite spend-the-night-type backpack and began to think about the important things to put in it. I would need lots to keep my occupied! I grabbed the Harry Potter book on my nightstand. I might even get a chance to finish it on the way to Florida. My I Pod was a must also. I wondered if Mom would let me download any new songs… I knew I would need more than that, so I found the old puzzle books I had gotten for our last road trip and stuffed those in my bag. I threw in some playing cards just in case I got so bored I needed to resort to a game of Rummy or War with my sister. Last, but certainly not least, I ran down to the kitchen to find some good snacks.
I settled into bed early that night, since we were leaving at 0’dark thirty the next morning. Visions of roller coasters and fireworks danced in my head as I drifted off to sleep.
The ride to Disneyland was an uneventful one. My sister and I kept ourselves entertained, which made my parents happy. They listened to a book on tape as we put more and more miles between ourselves and LaGrange. We had packed a cooler with a bunch of food, so we didn’t even have to stop for meals; only bathroom breaks were allowed on this trip. We were on a mission: Disneyland or BUST!
Disneyland was all I had imagined it would be and more. We ate yummy food, went on every ride imaginable, and stayed at the park until closing every night. What a great time we had.
I slept for what seemed like the whole ride home, exhausted from all the fun. When we got home, I began saving my allowance for the next time we get to go to Disneyland. Mom and Dad say that it’s going to be a long time before we get to go again, but I know they had as much fun as my sister and I did. They haven’t taken their Mickey Mouse ears off since we’ve been home.
Troup County Schools 2012