Thursday, September 3, 2015

Writing Workshop: Personal Narratives & What We Can Write About

On Monday we began our first Writing Workshop unit of study: Personal Narratives. The first part of this unit focuses on studying the masters for inspiration and ideas. The second part of the unit is on Author’s Crafts: studying imagery, tension and literary language in Owl Moon. The unit wraps up with students studying their own authors. Our first lesson focused on discovering small moments that generate ideas for writing. Students learned that not just any story is worth telling – but meaningful stories stand out. As a class we read the first page in Owl Moon and The Leaving Morning. We discussed how in Owl Moon the author, Jane Yolen, felt that the one small moment when her husband and daughter went on an owling trip was worth sharing. We also discussed how The Leaving Morning is an unusual way to describe a moving day. Many students agreed that Angela Johnson, author of The Leaving Morning, most likely has moved in her real life. We wrapped up the lesson with students brainstorming small moments from their lives that are worth writing about. Below are the stories we brainstormed.

playing with my sister
going to South Carolina
going to Florida
going to the fair
going to Pizza Putt
how I got Stella
seeing my friends at the fair
going to New Hampshier
going to Maine
my birthday
going to Mass.
going to the bumper cards
going to Skateland
going to the Cape
my little sister’s birthday
going to the haunted train
going to Turks and Caicos
having my birthday
playing with my brothers

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