About VWC

The Vermont Writing Collaborative is a group of teachers in Vermont (and elsewhere!) whose mission is to help all students, K - 12, write thoughtfully and effectively.
The five founding members are: Jane Miller of Burlington, Karen Kurzman of Derby Line, Eloise Ginty of Thetford, Joey Hawkins of Strafford, and Diana Leddy of Strafford. Among us, we have over 130 years of public school teaching experience at all grade levels.
In the fall of 2008, we published a book through Authentic Education (with a foreword by Grant Wiggins) called Writing for Understanding:Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively.
Since then, we have offered courses and workshops in the principles of Writing for Understanding around Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and elsewhere.

Welcome, VWC members!

June, 2011 - what a grand Summer Institute! We held four different strands, and had the honor of working with both old friends and new ones. It was a joy!
Teachers are working on a whole new batch of Writing for Understanding sequences, and those will begin appearing here. If you're a course participant, thanks for posting and giving your thoughtful feedback.
If you're a VWC follower, your feedback is most welcome as well!


Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Barbara Brugger Grade 3 Narrative

Central Ideas
Content: Illustrations can tell a story and add to its understanding. (Be aware of visual and sequential cues)

Reading: Illustrations can tell a story.

Writing: To show understanding, writers observe and organize sequenced illustrations to create a narrative story line.

Focusing Question
How do the illustrations support and deepen your understanding of the story?

Focus (answer to Focusing Question)
Finished piece will reflect student understanding

Building Content Knowledge, Understanding of Writer's Craft
"keeping to the topic" craft lesson
• "pigsty story board - work with notetaking, narrative elements, and text to illustrations
• "Good Dog Carl" - introduction with discussion re" caregivers do a variety of things to keep us safe.
Find narrative elements and then decide on a "Good Dog Carl" book to independently write an accompanying talking
bubble to given illustrations

Structures
story elements - mark "pony story" with narrative elements, then expand story to deepen understanding w/details
• anchor charts - how narrative elements support and deepen the understanding of a story
• sample models available
• vocabulary charts, created with narrative elements in mind
• pigsty model done with class

Writing / Revising
independent narrative with a beginning and ending frame provided, using talking bubbles
• conference and revising meetings with additional support for at risk learners
• use more extensive picture walk to build oral language for these learners

Lesson Sequence
daily lessons will use following books:
• Mark Teague - Pigsty class model
• Alexandra Day Good Dog Carl
Carl Goes Shopping
Carl's Christmas
Carl's Afternoon in the Park
Carl's Masquerade
Carl Goes to Daycare
Note: these are all texts students may choose from for their writing pieces with talking bubbles

Assessment
Final "Good Dog Carl" writing piece scored by teacher with rubric

Next Steps
Create another narrative using a different text



1 comment:

  1. Post from Kirsten Evans

    This plan provides excellent an excellent way to support writing of
    dialogue. This is something that I try to teach, but is very confusing
    for my students to keep clear. This structure will help students to
    identify the speaker as well as show clear communication. Great job
    pulling in narrative elements through illustrations. In my action
    research I found that using/drawing illustrations first helps students
    to organize and include all narrative elements when writing. It also
    helps to keep them motivated. This will be an excellent way to begin
    narrative writing without overwhelming students with the task of writing
    a whole narrative with conventions, sentences, etc. Can’t wait to hear
    how it goes!

    ReplyDelete