Writer's Workshop

Writer's Workshop

Changing the World

We will be utilizing Persuasive Writing to state claims that are important to us and craft essays on our claim.

How to Write a Persuasive Speech

• Develop an idea.
• See a problem and imagine a solution.
• See people, places, things, or ideas that are noteworthy - and help others see them, too.
• Write a thesis.
• Check that your thesis is brave and bold (avoid wishy-washy statements.)
• Gather reasons and evidence (examples, facts, details) to support your thesis.
• Consider your audience.
• Give evidence to support reasons
• Quotes, examples, personal stories, observations.
• Use transition words

We will be spending our second quarter studying the art of informational writing. Students will study the different organizational structures of expository texts and become experts of a topic that they will write about. 

Students will teach their classmates about their topic in preparation for writing.

Strong Information Writing

• Has a logical structure (least important → most important, first → last, parts, types, reasons)
• Contains chapters of almost equal weight and importance
• Covers the whole topic (or angle of a topic)
• Doesn't repeat information included in other chapters

Information Nonfiction Writers Include

• Quotations
• Statistics
• Anecdotes
• observations
• Descriptions
• Vocabulary Words
• Lists
• Labels

Teaching Moves that Information Writers Should Borrow

• Explain with your whole book will be about.
• Tell a bit about the big things you will teach (think table of contents)
• Try to say at least a few sentences about each part of your topic.
• Talk like an expert.
• Use fancy words and explain what they mean.
• Use your hands and your body or make quick sketches to show what things look like.

Students will construct a table of contents for their book, thinking about the organization and sequence of their text.

Strong Table of Contents

• Have a logical structure (least important to most important, first...last, parts, types, reasons)
• Contain chapters of almost equal weight and importance
• Cover the whole topic (or angle of the topic)
• Don't repeat information included in other chapters

Students will study the different organizational structures of expository texts.

Informational Text Structures

• Boxes and Bullets
• Cause and Effect
• Problem / Solution
• Pros/Cons
• Compare and Contrast

We have chosen our seed stories and are focusing on the following steps of writing personal narratives:

To Write a True Story

• Find story ideas that are focused and important to you and write lots of entries.
• Make a mental movie of what happened, telling it in small detail, bit by bit.
• Detail the actions.
• Detail the dialogue
• Remember your self-assessment of your narrative writing goals.
• Rehearse for your writing by storytelling the story repeatedly.
• Try different leads for your story (action? dialogue?).
• Write a flash draft, writing fast and furious, eyes on the mental movie.
• Revise.
• Try what other authors have done.
• Develop the heart of the story.
• Bring out the internal story ('I noticed...' 'I wondered...' 'I thought...').

Our writers have been spending time establishing goals as writers. We have gathered together and discussed what Third Grade Notebook Writer's do and don't do. Here are some of the things we do:

• Fill our notebooks with true stories that tell what we did in sequential order (first, next, after).
• Date each entry.
• Use dialogue in our stories.
• Write long and strong, filling many lines.
• Use action in our stories.

We have strategized to help us come up with story ideas when we are stuck on what to write about...

Finding Ideas for True Stories

• Think of a person who matters to you, list small moments, choose one,  and write the whole story.
• Think of a place that matters, map small moments, choose one, write it.