Mini-lesson: Where I Come From

This mini-lesson focuses on place, origins, and culture through the written word. I would
likely give this minilesson close to the beginning of the school year and again towards the end.
At the beginning of the year, I would do this minilesson to assess general usage of writing
conventions and grammar in response to a personal prompt and to ascertain what type of
writing students think I expect from them when not given instructions beyond “Write about where
you come from in whatever form you’d like.” Additionally, this lesson would allow me to
understand more about my students and their backgrounds early in the year, contributing to our
community cultural wealth as a whole and giving me a starting point to start establishing our
own personal class culture and community. I would do this minilesson again in the final weeks
of the course to assess how much students have grown in terms of writing confidence and
narrative style. I would return the products from both minilessons together so that students can
see their own growth in writing and ask students to respond to the prompt: “In which areas of
language use have you grown the most? Which would you like to focus on more in your future
language classes?”

Connection to “Think back to everything you learned about writing last year… what
Previous Learning kind of rules did we have for our writing?”
(1 min)
Anticipated responses:
Don’t use informal language
Don’t use “I” statements
Grammar rules

“In academic writing, these are generally the rules that we adhere to
when we’re working on essays or research papers. These are the
kinds of rules most English classes will want you to think about. But
what about when we write for ourselves? About ourselves? How
does our writing change if we’re talking about something that can’t
be examined objectively?”

Teaching Point “Everyone in here is a reader and a writer, even if it doesn’t feel that
(1 min) way, and even if you wouldn’t call yourself a big reader or don’t like
writing. Today I want to teach you about the ways that writing can be
a tool for self-expression and creativity, and not just for providing
analysis or factual information. Every year, students learn about the
five-paragraph-essay, MLA citations, writing conventions that are
graded on a rubric. Today, I want to break away from these ideas
and think about what kind of writing feels good for us.”

Modeling “I’m going to think about the classic ‘getting to know you’ prompt of
 (4 min) language classes: ‘Where do you come from?’ And I’ll start
brainstorming… yes, I’m from Boulder, Colorado, But I’m from more
than that… (I would start brainstorming, using bullet points). I’m from
potluck dinners at the end of the soccer season, and watercolors,
and catching grasshoppers in my hands all summer. And I’m from
Chinese New Year parties, and peaches, and tomatoes. I’m thinking
beyond where I’m from in the sense of location. I’m digging deeper,
into the food, the culture, the celebrations of the environment I call
home.”

Active Engagement Today, you’ll be writing a response to the prompt: “Where do you
(3 min) come from?” I’d like you all to go ahead and start brainstorming
ideas from the idea of digging into your PERSONAL culture. Not just
the culture of your family, although you should include that too, but
beyond. What is your personal culture? The things about your life
unique to YOU?”

Link to Learning “Now it’s your chance to put all that brainstorming into a product.
(1 min) You can choose whatever format you like to write in… poem,
narrative, a venn diagram or mind map. Keep in mind that if you
choose to use a graphic organizer, you should still include elements
that make it a work of self-expression rather than a response to an
academic prompt.”

Assessment of students’ grammar and conventions

At the end of the day, this minilesson will be a formative assessment for students’
grammar and conventions in addition to their experience and skills writing about themselves
artfully. This minilesson puts emphasis on the idea of place as in individual AND within one’s
community and will hopefully serve to inform my teaching so I can be as culturally-responsive as
possible in my language instruction. While I prioritize making my students and their language
welcome in my class, I also want to be sure that I am setting them up for success in any future
English Language Arts courses they may take. I hope to design a class that fosters love and
growth within the primary discourses of students while building on their strengths with
secondary discourses that will be most likely expected from peers and superiors in school and
more professional environments.