This blog I am going to dive into how books and articles help us help our students feel comfortable and excited to start writing more personally. The topics that the students choose will guide them into narrative writing, we just have to introduce them to strategies and model it the best way we know how!
Brown Girl Dreaming Part 3: pp. 139-203
written by Jacqueline Woodson
One of my favorite pages in this part of the book was "Sunday afternoon on the porch". I personally have a thing for porches and spend most of my summers on them now, as well as growing up. I thought this would be a great mentor text to use as an example because it is something I can relate to and probably took about 30 seconds out of the day. We discussed last class how students can get caught up telling you a "short story" that was from 8 am to the time they went to sleep. This excerpt is very clearly a single moment in time that I can relate to!
"Soon I'll rise from the porch,
change out of my Kingdom Hall clothes into
a pair of shorts and a cotton blouse
trade my patent-leather Mary Janes for bare feet
and join my grandfather in the garden.
What took you so long, he'll say. I was about to turn this earth around without you."
(page 200)
My writing based on this page's inspiration:
*insert photo here*
Happy Like Soccer
written by Maribeth Boelts and illustrated by Lauren Castillo
This was such a great, passionate, and uplifting book! I think this could be used as a mentor text in a similar way to how I used Enemy Pie to create a heart map. The author, Maribeth Boelts, gives the reader very specific things that the character likes, makes her happy and sad, and other feelings as well! This would be a great mentor text for students to use a lot of detail and reasoning in their narrative writing.
One of my favorite strategies from Craft Moves: Lesson Sets for Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts by Stacey Shubitz was:
Draw an Image in the Reader’s Mind
One way writers help readers make a movie in their minds is by using precise language to show their readers what’s happening instead of just telling.
Study at least two places in Happy Like Soccer that draw an image in the reader’s mind. Here are three possibilities:
On page 5: “I smile, but when she hugs me good-bye, I knowshe can feel me low around the edges.” The word low is aricher way to say Sierra was sad.
On page 10: “I bite my lip without meaning to and tell himno.” When Sierra bites her lip, readers sense her hesitation. Readers might think she wants to ask for a favor, but she’s afraid to, so she says no. Boelts shows how Sierra looked uneasy rather than telling us she was.
Page 29: “And I hear my name because they know me, not just my number. And above the rest, I hear my auntie’s strong voice cheering me on.” Readers might think Sierra is happy because the final game was rescheduled in her neighborhood.
Boelts doesn’t tell us she is happy, but readers sense it since she finally hears people cheering for her by name.
Craft Moves: Lesson Sets for Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts by Stacey Shubitz. © 2016 Stenhouse Publishers. No reproduction without written permission from the publisher.
Castillo’s stylized, expressive watercolor illustrations effectively depict the bleakness of Sierra’s situation and her small triumph. Realistic without being overly sentimental, Boelts’ uplifting story realizes the impact of family, community, and even a little cheering in a child’s life. — Booklist
Ch. 4 Mentor Texts
Hand Map Lesson: (linked my partner and my hand map lesson complete with examples and dialogue.)
Personal Short Story Model:
I chose to write a story from an idea on my hand map from the feeling of embarrassment. Now, if you know me well, I literally don't ever get embarrassed. This just isn't something I feel often, but when I do I don't forget it. The main story that comes to mind when someone asks about what embarrasses me this is what I think of:
Middle school. That should just be it, thats all I need to say. The dreaded "m" word. I just moved to North Carolina from Tennessee and was trying my hardest those past couple of months to make friends with the people I saw the most- the volleyball team. It was a normal practice...lots of fun and very sweaty. After practice we went to the locker room to get our stuff from school and head out to the -nothing short of magical- carpool line. Sometime we would goof off and make middle school humor jokes in the locker room while getting our stuff together and cooling down after practice. So let me preface this with this- I am not sure how it happened. I don't know who started this conversation or how it came up. Low and behold, it came out to me being stuffed into a trashcan. Luckily, it was the huge black ones that you can at least have some breathing room in- not that you really want to breathe in a trash can, but yeah. This wasn't a "lets bully her and put her in a trash can" situation. I practically volunteered in my attempts to "be cool" and make some friends. It was funny and I don't regret it. Yeah you heard me, I'm still friends with some of those people and I have a feeling this event jumpstarted the friendship. The embarrassing part of the story was not that I was in a yummy, girls lockeroom trash can. The embarrassing part was I was stuck - what felt like permanently - in the girl's locker room trash can. My legs were bent just the right way that I couldn't move them. Everyone tried to get me out, tip over the trash can, and even try to turn it upside down. NOPE. I was in there for good. Long (short) story short, the trashcan ended up having to be cut open in order for me to be released. Moral of the story: benched next practice, janitor hated me from then on, I was known as "trash can" for the next month, and I had 14 new best friends.
However, the trashcan itself did in fact not taste like victory.
Comments