Slow Way Home: Unit I

Lesson 4Slow Way Home Chapter 4From Illustraton to Draft

Milinda Jay, Ph. D

For teachers only

• Please read notes on slides 2,11,18,22,33 and 37

• Homework formative assessment slide 13• In this session, students will group write

class essay. Be certain to have large poster paper or giant sticky pads available for students to write on and display. Groups will write individual paragraphs, and then the paragraphs will be put together into a class essay.

• Homework assignment slide 38

Retell what happened

• In Chapter 3 of Slow Way Home• Each students take a turn saying one

sentence about what happened in Chapter 3.

Now, predict

• what might happen in Chapter 4.

Read aloud

• Chapter 4, Slow Way Home• What does Brandon think about • Brother Bailey? • Brother Bailey’s son?• Church?

Today’s Writing

• From illustration to draft

Sunshine State Standard

• Subject Area: Reading/Language Arts• Strand: Writing Process• Standard 2: Drafting• LA.910.3.2.1 The student will draft

writing by developing ideas from the prewriting plan using primary and secondary sources appropriate to the purpose and audience  

Sunshine State Standard

• Subject Area: Reading/Language Arts• Strand: Writing Process• Standard 2: Drafting• LA.910.3.2.2 The student will

draft writing by establishing a logical organizational pattern with supporting details that are substantial, specific, and relevant 

Sunshine State Standard

• Subject Area: Reading/Language Arts• Strand: Writing Process• Standard 2: Drafting• LA.910.3.2.3   The student will draft

writing by analyzing language techniques of professional authors (e.g., figurative language, denotation, connotation) to establish a personal style, demonstrating a command of language with confidence of expression.  

FCAT Writing Objectives

To organize personal life experiences and the life experiences of others into functional evidence

To develop voice

Teacher Component

• To create a unique learning community by writing with your students

• To model the process of writing for students with the understanding that teachers have to write drafts, too!

• To donate to the learning community by sharing your experiences and those of your family/friends through memoir

Pull out the story or stories

• You gathered from the relative you called yesterday or last night.

Get with your partner

• And tell your partner the story you heard last night.

Read Aloud

• Then, read aloud what you’ve written.

• Have your partner suggest what else you might include in your writing based on details you may have included when you told the story that you didn’t include in the writing.

Jot it down!

• Make a note to yourself of the details you need to add.

Three students

• Tell the story you gathered from a relative or family friend to the rest of the class, or read aloud the story you have written to record the story.

• Partners, you can volunteer your partner if you thought his/her story was especially good.

Teacher

• Tell the story you gathered from a relative or family friend to the class. Or, read aloud the story you gathered.

Review

• Yesterday we talked about assertion.• What is an assertion?

Illustrating the assertion

• Then, we talked about how to illustrate an assertion using personal stories and stories we’ve heard or read.

• Who can explain how this works?

Now, as a class

• We are going to brainstorm an entire essay from start to finish using the information we’ve been gathering all week.

I’m going to divide you

• Into your groups again and ask that each group be responsible for one paragraph in the essay.

• But first, we’re going to write the introduction together.

A good introduction

• Pulls the reader in to the writer’s world.

• Offers the assertion or main point that the writer will be explaining or proving

Assertion first?

• It doesn’t really matter whether you write your assertion first, or if you pull your reader in with a narrative first. Either way works.

• Let’s brainstorm our essay by beginning with the assertion we came up with yesterday as the first sentence of the essay.

• Kids often know more than adults think they do. Brandon, the main character of Slow Way Home, is a ten year old boy who sees his mother’s boyfriends for what they truly are: losers who will hurt rather than help his mother. If Brandon’s mom had taken a moment to listen to Brandon, she could have saved herself and Brandon a good bit of grief.

Transition

• Now, we need a sentence that will transition the reader into the rest of the essay.

• A transitional sentence looks back at the information prior, and forward to the information following.

To create a transition

• We need to know what we are going to write next.

• Ok, right now, we don’t know what we are going to write next.

• We are going to leave that space blank to fill in later when we know what we want to say next.

Now, each one write one

• I want each group to choose the best illustration from the list you made yesterday.

• Then, I want you to develop it into a well written illustration of the essay’s assertion or main point.

You have ten minutes

• To brainstorm and write an excellent illustration.

But before you do

• Keep this in mind.• A good illustration is a mini-story. • Your illustration needs to engage

your reader.• Your illustration needs to make the

reader think you are right there.• Excellent detailed description will put

your reader in your story

Morris in Slow Way Home

• Makes use of simile to pull the reader into the story.

Simile

• A comparison using like or as

• “And just for a second I saw the pity that hung like a cloud over both of our lives” (23).

Simile Race

• As a group, see how many similes you can find in Chapters 1-4 in five minutes.

• Winning group earns a free check plus, candy, or stickers, teacher’s choice.

• Ready, set, go!

Writing your Illustration:

• Before, during, and after you write your illustration, look at the following paragraphs in Slow Way Home to get ideas about how to write good description:

Page 1, paragraph 2Page 10, next to the last paragraph" By the

time..”Page 17, paragraph 9. “Mrs. Hanson was..”Page 31, paragraph 3Page 38, paragraph 8, “I pressed my

sneaker harder…”

Write Illustrations: 10 minutes

• At the end of the ten minutes, compile the paragraphs into a class essay.

• 1. A member from each group reads group illustration aloud

• 2. After all paragraphs are read, class decides in what order the paragraphs should be placed.

• 3. Each group write their paragraph on dry erase board or poster paper in corret order

Transitions

• Once the class has determined the best order of the paragraphs, and the paragraphs have been displayed in order on the board,

• your teacher will help you with transitional words and sentences to help move your reader from one paragraph to the next.

Write the transitions

• Write the transitions between paragraphs

Final Paragraph

• Do not restate what you have already stated!

• Instead, leave your reader with something to think about.

• Brainstorm this final paragraph as a class.

Homework

• Call another elderly relative you haven’t talked to in a while.

• Tell her you want to know more about her life and would love to hear stories about her childhood, or when she got married, or her parents.

• If she can’t think of a story, ask her to tell you about her first day of school. Write down the story. Bring it to class Monday.