Mrs. Pintarelli charted the transition words as Calkins suggests.
Then, Mrs. Pintarelli modeled the strategy with a post she wrote about homework.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Revising Blog Posts Part 3
Mrs. Pintarelli used Lucy Calkins' ideas from Breathing Life into Essays to suggest using transition words to push your thinking forward. By modeling pushing your thinking forward, Mrs. Pintarelli showed students one more way they can revise their blog posts. Using transition words to push thinking forward, allows a writer to more deeply express their thinking and leads his/her reader to their "big ideas" they have about the world. One of the most powerful things this unit has taught me, is the ablity these fourth graders have in thinking profound thoughts about the world in which they live.
Mrs. Pintarelli charted the transition words as Calkins suggests.
Then, Mrs. Pintarelli modeled the strategy with a post she wrote about homework.
Mrs. Pintarelli charted the transition words as Calkins suggests.
Then, Mrs. Pintarelli modeled the strategy with a post she wrote about homework.
Revising Blog Posts Part 2
Blog posts need to include evidence of good writing craft just as any other piece of writing does and so with this in mind, we decided to focus students in on revising their narrative mini stories.
Drawing on all our 4th graders know about narrative structure was not hard. Our students are experts at this point on telling their story slowly, on adding details and zooming in on small moments, on stretching their writing so the reader can feel emotion and empathize. For this revision lesson, we simply needed to review what students already knew so well and so inherently about writing stories and then teach them how to use storytelling as an effective tool for revising blog posts. The author of this post, "Animals" revised her writing to include a mini story that "shows not tells" about an experience with an abandoned puppy.
Drawing on all our 4th graders know about narrative structure was not hard. Our students are experts at this point on telling their story slowly, on adding details and zooming in on small moments, on stretching their writing so the reader can feel emotion and empathize. For this revision lesson, we simply needed to review what students already knew so well and so inherently about writing stories and then teach them how to use storytelling as an effective tool for revising blog posts. The author of this post, "Animals" revised her writing to include a mini story that "shows not tells" about an experience with an abandoned puppy.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Revising Blog Posts
This blogging unit has been a powerful example of using technology as a medium in writing instruction - not using writing as an excuse to use cool technology. Our 21st century learners have proven to need very little instruction in how to use the technology of kidblog. Our lessons are about writing not about technology.
We have been teaching revision all along but today we took the writing out of the blog and put it into the notebook to make sure our writers don't loose site of the fact that our primary instruction is writing and our secondary instruction is blogging. We printed out each post and had students cut the text and glue it into their writing notebook for a series of lessons that will shine a spotlight on the hard work of revision.
Our lesson today was on revising leads. We taught a mini lesson on two ways bloggers can revise leads. We decided to teach this lesson after we noticed yesterday that many of our students' blog posts were lacking a lead in introduction that communicates to the reader why they care so much about their topic. In our conferences yesterday we saw two posts that were very persuasive - one about school uniforms and one about toy guns. Both students had clear and strong feelings about their topic. We asked both students the same question - Where does this passion come from? Both students had very specific answers.
The student writing about school uniforms told us that he used to attend Catholic school and has had the experience of wearing a uniform everyday. He feels strongly that uniforms are not a good idea. To revise his lead and communicate his passion, we taught him to lead in with a mini story. By narrating his experience of attending Catholic school and wearing a uniform and then transferring to public school, the reader is better able to understand his point of view.
When we conferred with the student opposed to toy guns, we learned that his passion comes from the idea that fighting of any kind makes him scared and nervous. He likened that fear and feeling to his feelings of toy guns. When he sees even "play fighting" he told us, he gets that same sense of uneasiness that he gets when he sees real fighting of any kind. We taught him to lead in with that feeling and opinion. By leading with his feelings on fighting of any kind, the reader will be better able to appreciate his point of view on toy guns.
In today's mini lesson we used both those examples from our conferences yesterday to teach revising leads to the whole class. We shared with them how the two students yesterday revised leads. We invited all our students to use their writing notebooks today to try revising their leads using either a mini story or a feeling/opinion as a lead.
Here are two examples of how students revised today:
1. This student was working on a post about decisions. Here is a screen shot of the original post:
After the mini lesson she decided to revise her lead by starting with a mini story. Here is a picture of the notebook page with her revision:
2. This student was working on a post about loosing things. She decided to revise her lead by adding her strong feelings about loosing thing.
We have been teaching revision all along but today we took the writing out of the blog and put it into the notebook to make sure our writers don't loose site of the fact that our primary instruction is writing and our secondary instruction is blogging. We printed out each post and had students cut the text and glue it into their writing notebook for a series of lessons that will shine a spotlight on the hard work of revision.
Our lesson today was on revising leads. We taught a mini lesson on two ways bloggers can revise leads. We decided to teach this lesson after we noticed yesterday that many of our students' blog posts were lacking a lead in introduction that communicates to the reader why they care so much about their topic. In our conferences yesterday we saw two posts that were very persuasive - one about school uniforms and one about toy guns. Both students had clear and strong feelings about their topic. We asked both students the same question - Where does this passion come from? Both students had very specific answers.
The student writing about school uniforms told us that he used to attend Catholic school and has had the experience of wearing a uniform everyday. He feels strongly that uniforms are not a good idea. To revise his lead and communicate his passion, we taught him to lead in with a mini story. By narrating his experience of attending Catholic school and wearing a uniform and then transferring to public school, the reader is better able to understand his point of view.
When we conferred with the student opposed to toy guns, we learned that his passion comes from the idea that fighting of any kind makes him scared and nervous. He likened that fear and feeling to his feelings of toy guns. When he sees even "play fighting" he told us, he gets that same sense of uneasiness that he gets when he sees real fighting of any kind. We taught him to lead in with that feeling and opinion. By leading with his feelings on fighting of any kind, the reader will be better able to appreciate his point of view on toy guns.
In today's mini lesson we used both those examples from our conferences yesterday to teach revising leads to the whole class. We shared with them how the two students yesterday revised leads. We invited all our students to use their writing notebooks today to try revising their leads using either a mini story or a feeling/opinion as a lead.
Here are two examples of how students revised today:
1. This student was working on a post about decisions. Here is a screen shot of the original post:
2. This student was working on a post about loosing things. She decided to revise her lead by adding her strong feelings about loosing thing.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
"Digital Media, New Learners of the 21st Century"
PBS recently ran a piece showing how talented educators across the country are using all kinds of digital media as powerful instructional tools.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1797357384/#
http://video.pbs.org/video/1797357384/#
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Revising Blog Comments
As I indicated in a previous post, Mrs. Pintarelli and I discovered our students needed a re-fresher on blog commenting. We noticed that our bloggers, so enthused with being able to respond to their friends on line, were commenting with some lapses in netiquette and were writing comments that did not add to or start a conversation. We decided we needed to create a blog commenting rubric.
After discussing "3 Star, 2 Star and 1 Star" comments we sent our bloggers back to revise or write comments according to the rubric. As they wrote, Mrs. Pintarelli and I conferred with our bloggers.
I pulled up alongside one student, (I'll call him "Joe") hard at work writing a comment, I asked him what I always ask writers in a conference "What are you doing today as a writer?" Joe answered that he was trying hard to write a comment that was longer than one sentence but he couldn't think of what else to write. I reviewed what he had written, a comment to a post about how video games can make you smarter. He agreed with his friend's blog post but so far all he could think to write was "I like video games too." I decided to teach Joe how to pick one part of a blog post, one line, that resonates with you and write off of that line.
"Joe", I began, "you are so smart to know that your comment is really too short to be a worthwhile comment and I like how you are trying to think about how you can add something to this comment so it can be a 3 Star comment. Let me show you one thing you can do when you really agree with someone's post." I scrolled back up to the post. "Joe, re-read this post for a minute and as you do I want you to think about which part of it, what sentence you have a strong connection with." Joe read the post to himself. "There." he pointed to the screen. "This part, where he says video games are not a waste of time. Video games make you smarter". I agree with that. "Why?" I asked him, "because", Joe continued, "I have a video game it's called Smarter than a Fifth Grader and I know it makes me smarter when I play it".
"OK", I said, "Now let me show you how you can take that one line and write about why you agree with it". I took the mouse and gave Joe a little lesson on copying and pasting a line. "Now", I said as I pasted the line in his comment box "write about why you agree with that line".
After discussing "3 Star, 2 Star and 1 Star" comments we sent our bloggers back to revise or write comments according to the rubric. As they wrote, Mrs. Pintarelli and I conferred with our bloggers.
I pulled up alongside one student, (I'll call him "Joe") hard at work writing a comment, I asked him what I always ask writers in a conference "What are you doing today as a writer?" Joe answered that he was trying hard to write a comment that was longer than one sentence but he couldn't think of what else to write. I reviewed what he had written, a comment to a post about how video games can make you smarter. He agreed with his friend's blog post but so far all he could think to write was "I like video games too." I decided to teach Joe how to pick one part of a blog post, one line, that resonates with you and write off of that line.
"Joe", I began, "you are so smart to know that your comment is really too short to be a worthwhile comment and I like how you are trying to think about how you can add something to this comment so it can be a 3 Star comment. Let me show you one thing you can do when you really agree with someone's post." I scrolled back up to the post. "Joe, re-read this post for a minute and as you do I want you to think about which part of it, what sentence you have a strong connection with." Joe read the post to himself. "There." he pointed to the screen. "This part, where he says video games are not a waste of time. Video games make you smarter". I agree with that. "Why?" I asked him, "because", Joe continued, "I have a video game it's called Smarter than a Fifth Grader and I know it makes me smarter when I play it".
"OK", I said, "Now let me show you how you can take that one line and write about why you agree with it". I took the mouse and gave Joe a little lesson on copying and pasting a line. "Now", I said as I pasted the line in his comment box "write about why you agree with that line".
Monday, February 14, 2011
Revising Blog Posts
Digital Writing, like any other writing, is process based - writers plan for, draft, revise and edit. We reminded students of this process today as we taught our bloggers strategies for revising blog posts.
In teaching students non-narrative writing revision, I often teach them to include (color coded in the example below) a fact, a thought, a quote, a story and a number (small statistic)
In teaching students non-narrative writing revision, I often teach them to include (color coded in the example below) a fact, a thought, a quote, a story and a number (small statistic)
ex: Teachers love learning with each other. I think that is important because learning can feel lonely if you have no one to share your new ideas with. The other day in the teacher's room, Mrs. Poole shared an idea with me that I just loved and said "I love sharing ideas with you because you get so excited about new learning". One day last week, all the fourth grade teachers met to have lunch together because Mrs. Karam learned some new ways to teach essay writing and she wanted to share the ideas with everyone else. As the teachers ate lunch together, they all learned something new by sharing how they might take Mrs. Karam's ideas in their own classrooms. Sometimes teachers have professional days where only teachers come to school and no students come. In fact, 3 times a year teachers have professional days where the whole day is just about teachers learning new things together.
Mrs. Pintarelli modeled this revision technique on the Smartboard by showing students how she used it to write her most recent post about her daughter's gymnastics competition.
 | ||||
| Mrs. Pintarelli modeling her revision on the Smartboard. |
Because blog posts are written for comments, we added "ask a question" to the list of revision techniques. Students then went back to their posts and revised according to our list:
Here is how the author of "The Dentist" revised her post:
Here is how the author of "The Dentist" revised her post:
Here is her original post before the revision:
Friday, February 11, 2011
A Visit from a Fellow Blogger
Word of our blog is getting around! Mrs. Trainor, our Business Administrator, is an avid blogger. She has been writing her blog, Knitting and Sewing My Way Through Life, for three years. She visited us today to share with us the many things she has learned as a blogger.
Mrs. Trainor is passionate about knitting and sewing. She blogs, she told us, because she wants to share the things she makes with people all around the world who share her hobby. She told us that years ago, she only knew a few knitters that lived near her. Maybe she would meet fellow knitters in a yarn store or she would go to a class and meet knitters but now as a blogger, she knows many, many knitters and they live all over the globe. Mrs. Trainor loves how her blog has connected her to so many people who share her passion.
Mrs. Trainor showed us her blog and talked to us about the different parts of her blog. Visuals - pictures and videos - are a big part of her blog. Her photographs are very important pieces of her blog because she blogs about things she knits and sews and she wants people to be able to see what she made.
Mrs. Trainor showed us her Answer Garden where a blogger can pose a short question to readers and readers can answer the question. An Answer Garden is different than a comment because comments should be insightful, add something to a conversation, and invite others to comment.
She also showed us the labels box on her blog and taught us how she creates labels. Labels allow readers to find specific information in her blog quickly. We noticed that the labels box on a blog sidebar is just like the index in the back of a nonfiction book!
Finally, Mrs. Trainor told us how impressed she is that 4th graders are learning how to blog. She thinks that keeping a blog is a great way to become a better writer. In fact, even Mrs. Trainor, an expert blogger, is learning how to be a better writer by blogging. We taught her something too. She is using our Blog Planning Sheet to plan for her future posts. She said she has a big stack of them on her refrigerator and every time she thinks of an idea for a blog post, she fills one out!
Mrs. Trainor is passionate about knitting and sewing. She blogs, she told us, because she wants to share the things she makes with people all around the world who share her hobby. She told us that years ago, she only knew a few knitters that lived near her. Maybe she would meet fellow knitters in a yarn store or she would go to a class and meet knitters but now as a blogger, she knows many, many knitters and they live all over the globe. Mrs. Trainor loves how her blog has connected her to so many people who share her passion.
Mrs. Trainor showed us her blog and talked to us about the different parts of her blog. Visuals - pictures and videos - are a big part of her blog. Her photographs are very important pieces of her blog because she blogs about things she knits and sews and she wants people to be able to see what she made.
Mrs. Trainor showed us her Answer Garden where a blogger can pose a short question to readers and readers can answer the question. An Answer Garden is different than a comment because comments should be insightful, add something to a conversation, and invite others to comment.
She also showed us the labels box on her blog and taught us how she creates labels. Labels allow readers to find specific information in her blog quickly. We noticed that the labels box on a blog sidebar is just like the index in the back of a nonfiction book!
 |
| Picture of the Labels on Mrs. Trainor's blog |
Finally, Mrs. Trainor told us how impressed she is that 4th graders are learning how to blog. She thinks that keeping a blog is a great way to become a better writer. In fact, even Mrs. Trainor, an expert blogger, is learning how to be a better writer by blogging. We taught her something too. She is using our Blog Planning Sheet to plan for her future posts. She said she has a big stack of them on her refrigerator and every time she thinks of an idea for a blog post, she fills one out!
 |
| Mrs. Trainor, pointing out the photographs on her blog as she tells us the importance of the quality of her photographs. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)