Juli Kendall's Weekly
Writing Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers
are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about
supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion.
Last year, Juli kept a weekly journal from her Reading Workshop.
This year, Juli is continuing her journals, but this time she's focusing
on her Writing Workshop. Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing
Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals,
find out how here.
Writing Workshop
Week #15:
More Adventures in Genre Writing --
The Feature Story
Cookbooks are one of my favorite things. My copies of Joy of Cooking,
The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook,
The New American Heart Association Cookbook and Linda McCartney's Home
Cooking line our kitchen counter and shelves. The beautiful pictures,
the gorgeous colors, the smells lifting up from the pages, all draw me to
buy them. But I never seem to be able to follow the directions. I cook "by
the seat of my pants." Recipes, for me, are "suggestions"
about what to do, not directions to follow precisely.
It's the same with Writing Workshop and genre studies. The frame for genre
study that Isoke Nia lays out in "Units
of Study in the Writing Workshop" allows teachers to make decisions
for their students and their teaching that promote literacy through reading
and writing. It's not a recipe to be followed, but rather "suggestions"
for good teaching.
The beauty of this frame for a genre study is that it can be
used to organize so much good teaching in the writing workshop. The driving
force behind this kind of study is the principle of immersion, the idea
that students and teachers need to be deep readers of what ever kind of
writing they are learning to do. And equally beautiful is the fact that
you can be a learner alongside your students. Beginning a study means trusting
the learner part of you.
We're using this frame for our Unit of Study about Feature Articles. The
seven parts overlap each other and work together to provide a growing understanding
of the genre.
Best Guess Gathering
Immersion
Sifting
Second Immersion
Touchstone Try-Its
Writing
Reflecting/Assessing
And so we begin another stage in our ongoing adventure in writing!
Our Frame for Feature Article Study
Assessment Objective:
With a KWL chart (see below) in hand, students will work in a small group
(5) to list "What We Know about Feature Articles."
Learning Objective #1: Best Guess Gathering
Given a variety of magazines, students will do "Best Guess Gathering"
by working in groups to identify the important characteristics of feature
articles.
Learning Objective #2: Immersion
Given a variety of magazines, students will be able to choose interesting
examples of feature articles to read by paying attention to the sound and
look of the genre and noticing writing that they admire.
Learning Objective #3: Sifting
Given a variety of feature articles, students will be able to identify those
that do not carry the genre study forward by "sifting" them out.
Day 1: Assessment and Best Guess Gathering
"What do we know about feature articles?"
It's the first day of our study, so I ask the kids, "What do you know
about feature articles?" and the resounding response is "Nothing!"
"I forgot. What are articles?" wonders Jovani.
Blanca relies on her prior knowledge to come up with: "A magazine is
like a skinny book that gives you information. A feature article is something
in a newspaper that tells you about something."
So, I change directions quickly, deciding that the assessment time is over,
and we move into "Best Guess Gathering." Helen, one of our more
inquisitive students, questions the whole process. "Why are we guessing
what it is?" asks Helen. "Oh, I know. We know what it is, but
we can't explain it." With this bit of student insight, our study of
feature articles begins.
Day 2: Best Guess Gathering and Immersion
"Going into the world on a treasure hunt."
As the kids and I bring in magazines from class, home and the library, we
set about reading everything we can, trying to make our best guesses about
"what is a feature article?" Our magazine selection includes everything
from Import Tuner and a Spanish language version of People
to American Girl and National Geographic.
Our current "best guesses" about feature articles:
1. reading about magazines
2. might have a map
3. have photographs
4. photographs have captions
5. might have drawings
6. true, it really happened
7. title
8. write information in boxes
9. tiny box at the end of the feature article (writing)
10. paintings
11. italics (fonts)
12. page numbers
I see my job right now as assessing what the kids know by listening carefully
to their conversations and gathering their responses together. But my thinking
is all about how to help them develop a quality definition of feature articles.
Here's what Isoke Nia says:
Teachers must decide how much they want to say to prepare their
students for the hunt. Many teachers do not define the genre at all, choosing
instead to allow the definition of the genre to emerge from the gathered
texts. They trust that students have in their minds an image of the genre
and they want them to use this image to truly make a best guess. Other teachers
might choose to say more p; to give their students an image of the genre
before they go out to gather.
Day 3: Immersion
"Immersing ourselves in all our best-guess stuff."
Read, read, and read some more. That's what it's all about during genre
immersion. So, we're reading an amazing number of feature articles. As the
kids read and talk, I hear their understandings growing. They are trying
to create a working definition of feature articles for themselves. This
helps them "notice so much more than they would if the definition of
the genre had been handed to them in the beginning." But it's very
challenging work.
Some snippets of conversation from the kids as they work on creating a definition
of feature articles:
"A feature article has something that you can see, and then you write
about it."
"You have to write something, and you need to have proof."
"Where are the page numbers?" "They're in the way back."
Day 4: Immersion and Sifting
"Looking for specific feature articles that will carry the genre
study forward."
Looking through our entire treasure trove of magazines, we work to select
feature articles that help us understand the genre and serve as models for
our writing. They're not too much above our writing level, and they grab
our interest. In "Units of Study in the Writing Workshop," Isoke
Nia gives clear guidelines for "sifting."
We usually sift texts out for three reasons:
1. The text is not an example of the genre.
2. The text is an example of the genre, but it is not like what we will
write. Because of such variety within genres, we must make a decision about
what kinds of texts we will write. We keep only these kinds in our sifting.
3. The text belongs to the genre, and it is like what we will write, but
it just isn't good writing. We just don't like it so we take it out. This
is also when I'd remove anything that might not be appropriate content for
the class to use as a model.
As you are sifting, remember that the world of literature is large. There
is no reason for a single piece of literature that is not the best to be
included in the study.
The kids especially enjoy looking for feature articles that "might
not be appropriate content for the class to use as a model." We find
a few, and everyone agrees they should be sifted out.
After four days of feature article study, our best guess definition of feature
articles looks like this:
Feature articles . . .
-- grab your interest (topic and writing style)
-- give information
-- use research
-- are everywhere
-- include facts and proof
-- can be about any topic
-- include visuals and graphics
(More next week!)
About KWL charts:
I found a great
website for generating KWL charts. I put in my info and got a great
chart. If you'd like to see it, you can download it here.
Download Juli's Curricular Calendar
#5 (feature articles) for Writing Workshop
Download a comparison of Juli's Reading
and Writing Workshop plans
Read next week's journal
Read last week's journal
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
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