Writing Trait/Strategy:

Writing conventions

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Alphie the Apostrophe by Moira Rose Donohue
• The Girl’s Like Spaghetti by Lynne Truss
• Greedy Apostrophe by Jan Carr
• The Perfect Pop-Up Punctuation Book by Kate Petty and Jennie Maizels

Description:

This lesson focuses on apostrophes, but the procedures can be used for any writing convention. I noticed that my students were very confused about the proper usage of apostrophes. As with anything new, learners tend to overuse punctuation–some of them even started using apostrophes in every plural noun (“I have three cat’s.” “The flower’s are blooming.”). I decided to launch an investigation that we called “Apostrophe Detectives.” Each student searched through their independent reading books for words that contained apostrophes and wrote both the word and the phrase or sentence that contained the word.

Next I had the students work in small groups to discuss what they noticed. As a class we made charts of some of our “noticings.” We talked about why the apostrophe is an important punctuation mark and what happens when it is used incorrectly.

Next I read Greedy Apostrophe listed on the previous page to wrap up our discussion. Then I asked them to look through their writer’s notebooks to find any “greedy apostrophes” in their own writing. After our investigation, my students didn’t all go off and immediately start using apostrophes correctly, but this investigation made them much more aware of this little punctuation mark in both their reading and writing and helped them gain a more solid understanding of its proper use. I invited them to continue to search for “greedy apostrophes” in their own work and in the world. This is a common error—even among adults. Just a few days after our discussion, I found this “greedy apostrophe” at a local store! 

For more information on using mentor texts to teach grammar and punctuation skills, I highly recommend the following resources:

• A Fresh Approach to Teaching Punctuation by Janet Angelillo
• Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson
• Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style in to Writer’s Workshop by Jeff Anderson

Writing Trait/Strategy:

Sentence fluency; conventions

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• The Whale’s Song by Dyan Sheldon
• Crab Moon by Ruth Horowitz
• Shortcut by Donald Crews

Description:

This strategy, described in Mentor Texts by Dorfman and Cappelli, is an effective way to help students try out a variety of sentence structures and help them begin to internalize language conventions. Lift an excerpt from a text such as the example below from Shortcut by Donald Crews:

Read the passage aloud several times so that students can hear the rhythm of the text. After discussing what they noticed, have students participate in a shared writing experience. Give them the beginning sentence and have them fill in the rest, following the pattern and syntax of the original text:

After enough scaffolding has been done, invite students to try this out independently with a new sentence such as “I HEAR A WOLF!”

From Mentor Texts by Dorfman and Cappelli, 2007

Writing Trait/Strategy:

Organization

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Hey Al by Arthur Yorinks (description of character and question)
• Big Mama’s by Donald Crews (question)
• My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray (description of a person)
• Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (setting the mood)
• All About Owls by Jim Arnosky (question lead)
• Vote! by Eileen Christelow (What if..? Scenario)
• The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles (quote)
• My Brother Martin by Christine King Farris (anecdote)

Description:

It is amazing how even this one mini-lesson can dramatically improve student writing. When a writer begins with a good lead s/he sets the tone for the entire story and entices the reader to read on. It is important that the first few sentences of a story grab the reader’s attention. Young writers often fall into the trap of beginning with a generic lead that is boring and dry. We can begin to teach students how to develop good leads by first showing them how not to grab the reader’s attention. I begin this mini-lesson by shaking my students’ hands using a limp handshake. I explain that when we meet someone for the first time, we want to look them in the eye, smile, and give them a firm handshake. In other words, we want to make a good first impression. Writers want to do the same thing.

Then I introduce some ways NOT to make a good first impression in our writing. Some of these ways include:

• Hi! My name is…
• My story is about…
• Once upon a time…
• One sunny day…

Students will recognize these beginnings from their own stories and even begin to chuckle when they realize how boring they sound.

Here is one of my students’ “stick to the facts” boring leads:

The next step is to give students some specific techniques that can be used to grab the reader’s attention. These techniques include:

• Use dialogue: have the main character talking to someone.
• Jump right into the action of the story
• Pose a thought-provoking question
• Describe a character’s thoughts or feelings
• Begin with an astonishing fact
• Use a sound effect
• Start with a quotation from an expert or someone well-known
• Describe a setting
• Use humor or word play

While presenting these techniques to students, it is helpful to read examples of them in children’s literature and have students try to identify which technique(s) the author used.

Next give students a topic and have them practice writing 2 or 3 leads, trying out various techniques. Explain that authors usually try out several leads before settling on one. Share the fact that E.B. White experimented with over a dozen leads before settling on one. You may want to show some of them to your students. They can be found at Charlotte’s Web leads.

I have my students purposely write boring leads and then revise them using the techniques we have studied.  Here are some examples of their boring leads and revisions:

Writing Trait/Strategy:

organization

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Bat Loves the Night by Nicola Davies
• Just Like Daddy by Frank Asch
• The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger
• Rain by Manya Stojic
• Treasures of the Heart by Alice Ann Miller
• Big Mama’s by Donald Crews
• Birthday Presents by Cynthia Rylant
• Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe
• Saturdays and Teacakes by Lester Laminack

Description:

A conclusion that leaves a final impression on the reader is just as important as an attention-grabbing lead. Students fall into traps with conclusions just as they do with leads. When students don’t know how to end a story, they will wind up saying something like:

• “And then I went home and went to bed.”
• “That is the end of my story.”
• “I hope you liked my story.”
• “I woke up and it was all a dream.”

To help them avoid these traps, teach the following techniques, first by introducing them, then by reading examples from mentor texts, and finally by having students practice writing story conclusions. Often an author will use more than one of these in a conclusion.

• Recount a memory of the main event
• Share a lesson the character has learned as a result of his/her experience
• Describe an emotion the main character is feeling regarding something that happened in the story
• Tell a decision the main character has made as a result of the experience
• Share the character’s hope or wish for the future

As students are just learning these techniques, many find it helpful to use sentence starters:

• It was then that I realized…
• From now on, I know I will never…
• The next time…
• As I looked ____, I remembered…
• I decided that from now on I…
• I can still feel…
• From that day on, I decided…
• I hope that next time…

Student Samples

Writing Trait/Strategy:

Adding details; organization

Description:

Some young writers have difficulty clearly conveying their message on paper. They know what they want to write about but struggle to capture their thoughts on paper in a way that is clear to the reader. This mini-lesson helps students see the need to clarify their information and include enough details for the reader. Model this technique by writing a “story” on the overhead or chart paper:

My brother has a dog.

Ask students what they think of your story. Most will say that you need to write more. Ask students what they want to know about your dog. They will ask questions such as, “What is its name? Where did you get it? What does it look like?” Write a second draft of your story, including answers to their questions. Help students to see that a writer needs to include enough details for the reader.

Extend this technique by having students read a draft of one of their stories to the class. Invite classmates to ask the writer questions that will help clarify the message. After sufficient modeling, this technique can also be used with writing partners.

After sufficient modeling, I encourage my students to begin asking the questions of themselves as they write. “What would my reader want to know about my story?”  With my developing and fluent writers, I expand the “asking questions” strategy by teaching them how to use planning sheets.

Writing Trait/Strategy:

Adding details; organization

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Your own modeled writing—see description below
• The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston
• Laura Charlotte by Kathryn Galbraith
• Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin, Jr.,
• The Hickory Chair by Lisa Fraustino
• Every Friday by Dan Yaccarino
• A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams

Description:

To give students more practice in asking questions to help clarify their writing, I often use this technique as a brainstorming tool. We begin by making a list of all the questions we think the reader might want to have answered in the piece. Students answer the questions either orally or on a planning sheet before beginning their rough drafts. When using planning sheets for this prewriting activity, I always model how to go from the completed planning sheet to the first draft. Without sufficient modeling, students will end up just recopying the answers from the planning sheets. Following are two sample lessons that work well with this technique:

Special Object

Read aloud a picture book involving a character who owns a special object. The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston and Laura Charlotte by Kathryn Galbraith are good ones. Have students select an object that is special to them. Brainstorm questions that the reader will want to know, such as:

• Where did you get this object?
• Why is it special to you?
• How long have you had it?
• Have you ever misplaced it?
• Have students answer the questions and then write a first draft.

Student Sample:

Family Traditions

Read aloud a picture book involving a family tradition such as Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin, Jr., The Hickory Chair by Lisa Fraustino , or A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams . Give students the following assignment: “Make a list of some family traditions that are important to you. Think about holidays, birthdays, or other special events. Think also about everyday events that are traditions in your family. The traditions can be from the present or the past and can involve your entire family or just one member. Talk to other members of your family to get more ideas.”  I model first by making my own traditions list:

Have students complete planning sheets and drafts using the following questions as a guide:

• What is the tradition and how do you participate in it?
• Why is it important to you? Why do you love it?
• How does it make you feel?

Model by writing about one of your own family traditions. Here is one of mine:

Writing Trait/Strategy:

Ways with words; creating mind pictures for the reader

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Night Noises by Mem Fox
• Widget by Lyn Rossiter McFarland
• The Painter by Peter Catalanotto
• Dad and Me by Peter Catalanotto
• Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

Description:

Mark Twain said, “Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.” In other words, show, don’t tell the reader what is happening. Instead of telling the reader that the character is happy, excited, angry, or scared, the writer should show it.

When reading aloud picture books to students, look for examples where the author shows rather than tells. For example, in Night Noises by Mem Fox, instead of telling the reader that Lily Laceby is old, Fox shows us: “Her hair was as wispy as cobwebs in ceilings. Her bones were as creaky as floorboards at midnight.”

These are the procedures I use to introduce this craft to my students:

1. Introduce the show-don’t-tell technique by acting out an emotion without telling students what it is. For example, act out “angry” by using body language and describing what you are thinking or feeling without using the word “angry.” Have students guess the emotion.
2. Next have students list as many emotion words as they can and call on volunteers to act out several emotions.
3. When you feel that students understand this concept, have them select an emotion to write about. Have them write a sentence or two, telling the emotion (e.g., “I was so happy when my dad said we could get a puppy.”
4. Have them write a second draft, showing rather than telling (e.g., “When my dad announced that we could get a puppy, I jumped off my chair and planted a kiss on his cheek!”).

In my experience teaching this technique I find that my students understand what I mean by “show, don’t tell” but they have difficulty incorporating it into their writing. To scaffold this for them, I go around the room and ask each student to tell their emotion word. As a class we collaborate to orally describe what the emotion might look like. They say that “excited” looks like “jumping up and down” or “proud” looks like “shoulders back and head held high.” Once we have done this oral practice, they find it much easier to “show” in their writing.

Student Samples:

Writing Trait/Strategy:

organization; structure

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Someday by Eileen Spinelli
• When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth by Jamie Lee Curtis
• I Am the Dog, I Am the Cat by Donald Hall
• Rosie and Michael by Judith Viorst
• Grandad Bill’s Song by Jane Yolen
• That’s Good! That’s Bad! by Margery Cuyler
• Fortunately by Remy Charlip
• My Mom Travels a Lot by Caroline Fellar Bauer
• Tough Boris by Mem Fox

Description:

The seesaw pattern is a simple pattern to teach young students, especially when you have mentor texts to model its use. Read aloud one of the books listed above and explain to students that it has a special pattern. After reading the book, ask students what pattern they noticed. Explain that this is called a seesaw pattern and is a common technique used by writers. Some writers use it throughout the entire book; others use this craft just in a section of a book. Choose a pattern and have students create one page for a class traveling book.  The samples below come from a class advice book that my students made for a teacher who had just had a baby.

Student Samples:

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Beach by Elisha Cooper
• Big Mama’s by Donald Crews
• Outside, Inside by Carolyn Crimi
• In the Tall, Tall GrassIn the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming
• Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes
• Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells

Description:

One way to dramatically improve student writing is to teach them about specificity of nouns and verbs. Many students have been taught that adding adjective makes writing more descriptive. The truth is, stronger nouns and verbs hold the secret to better descriptive writing.

Specific Nouns and Verbs

The more specific the verb, the more accurately the writer can convey an image or create a scene. Give students a sentence with the verb blanked out. Have them brainstorm a list of verbs that could be used to complete the sentence.

The car _________ down the road.

(skidded, raced, swerved, putzed, flew)

Nouns need to be specific and concrete, too. Have students brainstorm specific nouns for a list of vague ones.

bird = cardinal
dog = German shepherd
things = paper clips
flower = chrysanthemum
boy = student

Proper Nouns

Encourage students to revise some of their common nouns and replace them with proper nouns. This is another effective way to achieve specificity. Using people names, place names, or brand names brings credibility to a text and conjures up stronger images for the reader.

• Saturdays and Teacakesby Lester Laminack
• Uptown by Brian Collier
• Come On, Rain! by Karen Hess
• Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
• Baby by Patricia MacLachlan

Color Words

Color words can also be spruced up a bit with a dose of specificity. Color words do not have to be limited to the primary colors or the colors of the rainbow. Try bringing in strips of paint samples or having students look through their crayon boxes and making lists of synonyms for the basic colors. Why write blue when we could write sapphire, powder blue, azure, Air Force blue, cobalt, electric blue, denim, cyan, cornflower, indigo, royal blue, steel blue, ultramarine, or sky blue…and this list could go on. Click here for more writing mini-lessons and mentor texts that use color.

Hyphenated Adjectives

While strings of adjectives do not generally enhance descriptive writing, the use of hyphenated adjectives can add specificity and voice to a piece. Adjectives should be powerful, purposeful, fresh, and interesting. (Cappelli and Dorfman, 2007). A hyphen indicates that two words should be thought of as one, especially when using two adjectives or groups of words that are acting as a unit. (Anderson, 2005). Share examples from mentor texts and then invite students to try some on their own. Try giving them fill-in-the-blank phrases to practice.

• The Divide by Michael Bedard
• Up North at the Cabin by Marsha Wilson Chall
• My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray
• Baseball, Snakes, and Summer Squash by Donald Graves

Examples from  My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray:

“Bless the world it feels like a tip-tapping song-singing finger-snapping kind of day.”

“…out we’d go into the red-orange morning with kites and balloons tied to our wrists.”

Writing Trait/Strategy:

word choice; sentence fluency

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill
• White is for Blueberry by George Shannon
• Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People by Jane Yolen
• My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
• A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni
• Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra and Myles Pinkney
• A Rainbow All Around by Sandra and Myles Pinkney
• The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin

Description:

Color is a tool used by writers to enhance their descriptive writing and create mind pictures for the reader. The mentor texts listed above can be used to show students how different authors use the concept of color to develop their ideas. We can even have students borrow the structure of these books and explore colors on their own. The following lesson is an example:

Color Poems

Read aloud Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill. Have each child select a color to write about. Ask, “If you could taste this color, what would it taste like? If you could hear it, what would it sound like?” Repeat with all 5 senses. Have students record their ideas on a planning sheet (pp. 107-108). On their first drafts most students will use simple sentences such as,

“Blue is the sight of the sky.”

“Pink is the taste of watermelon.”

Encourage them to expand these sentences to include more description to create mind pictures for the reader:

“Blue is the sight of the sky when the cumulus clouds

are moving to different parts of the sky.” by Jaymi

“Pink is the taste of watermelon squirting juice

in my mouth when I bite into a piece.” by Kelly

After students complete their drafts on the planning sheets, have them write color poems using some of the words and phrases and then illustrate.

Check out this website for another variation on these color poems:  "Have You Heard the Sound of…" Poems

In other mentor texts, color is used more subtly but just as powerfully:

“The farms in Iowa. They are pictures: White houses. Red roofs. Green, green
rolling hills and black garden soil all around them.”

from Tulip Sees America by Cynthia Rylant

“The garden glows with cone flowers, purple-blue, and marigolds, lantana,
as flame and thistles, too.”

from Butterfly House by Eve Bunting

“He calls to me with a promise in his voice, and I run, seeing his hand curl
like a flower budding, then unfolding wide so I can see the pink circle of a
worm, the round beetle shining in gold armor, …or the leaf-green mantis
balancing today on long thin legs.”

from My Father’s Hands by Joanne Ryder

Other mentor texts that have examples of color words:

• My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore
• The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow
• The Days Before Now by Margaret Wise Brown

Once you call attention to author’s use of color, you and your students will begin to notice examples everywhere!