Week 1

ENGL 3690
Writing: Elementary School
 Housekeeping
Ø Assignments Due Today
Reading Response Assignment: Week 1
Sign-Up for Article of the Week
Discussion Board and 3 comments/questions
Ø Assignments Due Next Week
Reading Response Assignment: Week 2
Pen Pal Letter #1
Ø Article of the Week (approved 1 week prior)
Today: Check Elearning Content to Sign-Up
Next Week: Check Elearning for Student to Present
Presentation: Approximately 5 minutes (no more than 10)
Overview
• Objectives & Goals
• (L.5) Motivation and Engagement
• (L.14) Vocabulary
• (L.12) Handwriting
• (L.17) Composition

• Activities
• Start your Writer’s Website and add a Notes Page (if you haven’t
already done so) to your Writer’s Website
• Break-Out Rooms: Revising Everyday Text, Voice

• Assessment
• In-Class Points based on class activities posted in Chat Box
Learning Outcomes

Motivation and Engagement (L.5)

Students will practice techniques to encourage and assess

literacy motivation and engagement, selecting/using research-
supported instructional practices to develop meaningful
interactions with individuals and information, combined with
experiences.
Learning Outcomes

Vocabulary (L.14)

Students will discuss and implement strategies to teach and

assess vocabulary, including understanding of multiple
meanings across contexts, figurative language, and
morphological structures of words.
Learning Outcomes
Composition (L.17)

Students will select, craft, and assess instructional methods

that develop written composition abilities in a variety of
motivating and engaging contexts, including writing across
the disciplines. Students will explore the following
instructional practices: setting writing goals,
offering/receiving/incorporating feedback, engaging the
writing process and strategies, and studying models and
non-models of writing for a variety omnbf purposes and
audiences.
Assessment/Exit Tickets
Remember, to earn In-Class Points, you must share
in the discussions and activities throughout each
class session. I will be scoring your participation from
the contributions you post in the Chat Box. You can
earn up to 10 points per each class period (20
points for those of you who attend once a week).
Community Engagement is how we work together to
progress to mastery in the standards of this class. It is
also how we create a positive class environment where
everyone is comfortable taking academic risks!
The Importance of Taking Notes
Note taking forces students to pay
attention and helps them focus in
class (or while reading a textbook).
It helps them learn. Studies on
learning have shown that actively
engaging with the topic by listening
and then summarizing what
students hear helps them
understand and remember the
information later.
Just as you will teach your
students, please take notes in class
and during readings. Then, post the
notes in a separate Notes section in
your Writing Website.
 The Importance of Teaching Cursive
Not only is cursive good for speed of writing, but it
also is shown to improve brain development in the
areas of thinking, language and working memory.
Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and
synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres,
something absent from printing and typing.
Teaching is all about fostering
positive relationships!
There are many components to building a successful
classroom. Let’s talk about why creating a positive,
nurturing classroom environment is key to teaching writing.
We can practice our communication skills in this course by using
groupwork, and class discussions (just like we teach children).
Ø What does this have to do
with teaching?
Ø Why would we do that
in a Writing Course?
Ø Community Engagement
Reading makes
better writers!
“Every book, sign, menu,
brochure, website, and
advertisement, along with
hundreds of other formats,
has the potential to serve
as mentor text. You just
have to see it that way. I
see the world differently
from most people. I see
reading through the eyes
of the writing thief.”
` Ruth Culham
• When children have access to reading
material, they read.
• Reading has been shown to improve “all
aspects of children’s literature including
vocabulary, grammar, spelling, reading and
writing ability.”
• Students need access to great text and great
teaching.
• Stop Doing Dumb Things, pg. 17
• Zombie Practices - 5 sentence paragraph
• CCSS, Pre-K-6Teaching Preparation
Standards
• 4 Ws: writing process, writing traits, writing
workshop, writing modes
Revising Everyday Text & Experiment with Voice
• Use page 3 of text

• Revise familiar, everyday text Group 1 Group 2

messages to add voice
• Examples: exit, occupied, open,
closed, stop, yield, no parking,
etc.
Group 3 Group 4
• Work with your group to create
something fun
• Presentations (pictures,
explanations posted on the
Chat). Label your group number.
Group 5 Group 6
 Revising Everyday Text & Experiment with Voice
• Then*, continue your work in groups by
reading over the next slide about Mentor * Transition words for K-6
Texts.
• Next*, the last bullet point says, “Ideas-1, Group 1 Group 2
Organization-2, Voice-3, Word Choice-4,
Sentence Fluency-5, Conventions-6,
Presentation-All (Pages 40-43 in The
Writing Thief).
Group 3 Group 4
• Finally*, choose the corresponding writing
trait with your group number. Read and
discuss your trait and choose a group
member who will share out the information
about your trait to the class in the Chat Group 5 Group 6
Box. That student will also list the names of
the group members.
What are Mentor Texts?
Any text, print or digital, that you
can read with a writer’s eye

Why be a Writing Thief?

• Help your students learn what sentence fluency is and how to use
it more effectively in their own writing by turning to a paragraph
of a much admired text (fiction or nonfiction) and pointing out the
varied sentence structure
• Your student writers will learn how to make connections with the
reader
• Students will see authentic, exemplar examples for the key qualities
for each writing trait
• Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency,
Conventions, Presentation (Pg 40-43 in The Writing Thief)
Ideas for Anchor Charts
Writing Process & Traits
More Ideas for Anchor Charts
More Ideas for Anchor Charts

Also, Check Student Instruction in Elearning for more examples.

How Can I Find Mentor Texts?
• Search for texts that show each of the
key qualities, trait by trait, in
exemplar (worthy of imitation) pieces
of writing
• Find texts that sparks student writer’s
curiosity and study their technique to
figure out how they can be applied to
make it memorable
• Find and fall in love with these texts
together (i.e. Read Alouds)
• Look at picture books, brochures,
signs, blogs, websites, email,
advertisements, TV, movies, play, or
song lyrics.
Pen Pal Letter ~ Due: First Meeting of Week 2
Instructions for Pen Pal Letters are in Elearning.
Don’t forget… Your first Pen Pal Letter is
due on the first class meeting of Week 2
• Please write a friendly letter using the
guidelines in Elearning. We don’t have
you “matched up” yet, so can simply use
“student” instead of a name
• Be kind, share some aspects of your life
and ask questions about your student’s
interests and school experiences
• Your letter should be approximately one
page, and you may use clip art
What do you think?

Quote from Cultivating Genius:

Literacy was viewed as the

means of building reading
and writing skills and
knowledge, as well as the
means to shape their
identities and critical
understanding of themselves,
of communities and of the
world.
Take-Away Ideas
After we speak about the lessons
we have learned from Black
Literary Societies, please post in
the Chat what practical
applications you could apply to
your own classroom to show a
literacy presence.
 Lesson Planning K-6
In preparation for the Unit Lesson
Plan assignment at the end of the
semester, we will work on lesson
planning through our time
together. Just like you would when
you teach something new to
elementary students, I will model
Best Practices for designing
writing lesson plans. We will work
together on this lesson.
The template is in Elearning.
Writer’s Website
Your Writer’s Website is a portfolio
that houses all of the projects,
assignments, lesson plans, ideas, etc.
that you work on this semester. We
spoke briefly about it during our
last class. Hopefully, you read about
the Website in the Content Section
of Elearning.
For those of you who haven’t set up
your Website, I will show you how
to set up a Weebly Website now. I
will share a student website from
last semester.
What questions do you have?
Please use the Chat Box or raise
your WebEx hand .
Choose Kindness for yourself
and those around you!