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Presents lessons designed to show teachers how to use picture books to teach writing skills to students in grades four through eight, and includes recommended reading lists.
Who says there’s only one way to write a story? A young boy wants to write a story, but he only knows his letters, not words. His sister says, “Why don’t you start there, with a letter?” So the boy tries. He chooses an easy letter to begin with. The letter I. And to his delight, with just the power of his vivid imagination, and no written words, an amazing story begins to unfold. Right before his eyes. This playful tale about creativity will inspire budding authors everywhere to envision new ways to write stories of their own. With or without words!
Using picture books as models is a powerful way to teach key expository and narrative target skills. Step-by-step directions and charts, with quality children's literature used as models, help you set up and manage effective 45-minute long writing workshops. Also includes extensive lists of other children's literature with their recommended Target Skill application.Teach brainstorming, focus, organization, elaboration, and writing conventions using literature as models. Primary and intermediate-level lessons for each of 20 models allow you to customize your writing workshops to the needs and abilities of your K-5 students.
Mentor-text-based lessons on finding topics, organizing material, writing leads and endings, exploring genre, and more.
In this practical guide to teaching beginning language learners of all ages, Calhoun encourages us to begin where the learners begin--with their developed listening and speaking vocabularies and other accumulated knowledge about the world. Engage students in shaking words out of a picture--words from their speaking vocabularies--to begin the process of building their reading and writing skills. Use the picture word inductive model (PWIM) to teach several skills simultaneously, beginning with the mechanics of forming letters to hearing and identifying the phonetic components of language, to classifying words and sentences, through forming paragraphs and stories based on observation. Built into the PWIM is the structure required to assess the needs and understandings of your students immediately, adjust the lesson in response, and to use explicit instruction and inductive activities. Individual, small-group, and large-group activities are inherent to the model and flow naturally as the teacher arranges instruction according to the 10 steps of the PWIM. Students and teachers move through the model and work on developing skills and abilities in reading, writing, listening, and comprehension as tools for thinking, learning, and sharing ideas. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.
"Give young students the skills and confidence they need to become great writers. This book includes everything you need to teach personal narrative writing week-by-week planning calendars, mini-lessons with sample dialogues student work, reproducible checklists, and more. Includes an extensive list of picture books that you can use to model different story elements."--Back cover.
In their first edition of Mentor Texts, authors Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli helped teachers across the country make the most of high-quality children's literature in their writing instruction. Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6, 2nd Edition the authors continue to show teachers how to help students become confident, accomplished writers by using literature as their foundation. The second edition includes brand-new Your Turn Lessons, built around the gradual release of responsibility model, offering suggestions for demonstrations and shared or guided writing. Reflection is emphasized as a necessary component to understanding why mentor authors chose certain strategies, literary devices, sentence structures, and words. Dorfman and Cappelli offer new children's book titles in each chapter and in a carefully curated and annotated Treasure Chest. At the end of each chapter a Think About It'sTalk About It'sWrite About It section invites reflection and conversation with colleagues.The book is organized around the characteristics of good writing'sfocus, content, organization, style, and conventions. The authors write in a friendly and conversational style, employing numerous anecdotes to help teachers visualize the process, and offer strategies that can be immediately implemented in the classroom. This practical resource demonstrates the power of learning to read like writers.
Very short, creative stories pair with bold illustrations in this picture book that will inspire young readers to stretch their imaginations and write stories of their own. "One day. . . I went to school. I came home. The end," says our storyteller—a girl with a busy imagination and a thirst for adventure. The art tells a fuller tale of calamity on the way to school and an unpredictably happy ending. Each illustration in this inventive picture book captures multiple, unexpected, and funny storylines as the narrator shares her shorter-than-ever stories, ending with "One day. . . I wanted to write a book." This book demonstrates a unique approach to writing and telling stories and is a delightful gift for children as well as for teachers seeking a mentor text for their classrooms.
