Help Writers Explore PURPOSE

Sally Martin, EKUEKUWP 2015 Summer Institute,

June 12, 2015

“…teachers should include opportunities for students to choose their own topics and/or modify teacher-selected prompts related to the purposes and genres being taught.”

Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers

“…teachers should include opportunities for students to choose their own topics and/or modify teacher-selected prompts related to the purposes and genres being taught.”

Steve Graham, et.al.Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers

“…teachers should include opportunities for students to choose their own topics and/or modify teacher-selected prompts related to the purposes and genres being taught.”

Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers

I felt I was a collector, accruing knowledge, wit, and possibility, and this gave me an exhilarating sense of power and connectedness. ...because writing allows anything encountered to be made into meaning, everything felt possible. I felt alive, and I remember saying: "So this is what it feels like." And I remember this because I wrote it, charging it with the additional intensity of writerly consciousness.

Writerly Consciousness Grosskopf, David, 2004

“Writing well... begins with teaching students why they should write” (7).Premise 1: “If we are to build students who grow up to write in the real world, we must... [introduce] our young writers to additional real-world discussions” (8).Premise 2: “...we must provide them with authentic modeling... from the teacher and from real-world texts” (8).

Kelly Gallagher Write Like This

Write Like This: Six Writer Purposes

• Express & Reflect• Inform & Explain• Evaluate & Judge• Inquire & Explore• Analyze & Interpret• Take a Stand or Propose a Solution

Show Don't Tell: Generating Topics

•Women’s equity issues• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore• Renovation recycling•Moving an Old House

Show Don't Tell: Drafting•Modeling Quick Writes• Provide a mentor text•Model a brainstorming process•Model drafting a quickwrite

• Students• Generate at least 3 topics for each purpose• Quickwrite on several purpose topics before

choosing one to develop

Show Don't Tell: Drafting• Quick Writes: I was a witness• Students consider the history they’ve witnessed and write

to explain.

• Resource: Kelly Gallagherhttp://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html

Show Don't Tell: Drafting• Kernal Essays: • Write about a topic, using one of the text structures as a

guide, creating one sentence per box. • Read the kernel essay aloud to several listeners to see

whether the text structure worked for the topic.

• Resource: Gretchen Bernabei Reviving the Essayhttp://www.northstaroftexaswritingproject.org/?page_id=836