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Summer 2012Educator Effectiveness Academies

English Language Arts

Transitioning to the CCSS by Making Strategic and Informed Choices in the Classroom

Day 2, Session 2

Making Strategic Choices in

Writing Instruction

Preparation for Day 2, Session 2

As you embark on your Day 2 journey, for Session 2 you will need:

Myth or Reality Handout

Chart paper and markers

Please remove the 3 slide handout from the participants’ binders

Session Outcome

Participants will develop knowledge to make strategic choices in writing instruction.

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Overview of the Writing Standards

What do you think are the big ideas or themes in the CCSS writing

standards?

Expect students to compose arguments and opinions, informative/explanatory pieces, and narrative texts based upon sources

Focus on analytic writing and the use of reason and evidence

Emphasize ability to conduct research – short projects and sustained inquiry

Require students to incorporate technology as they create, refine, and collaborate on writing

Expect students to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered during the preceding grades

Organization of the Writing Strand

Standards 1, 2, and 3 are the writing types:

argument (secondary)/opinion (elementary)

informative/explanatory

narrative

Organization of the Writing Strand

Standards 4 , 5, 6 (Production and Distribution) apply to all three of the writing types:

W4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style appropriate to task, purpose, and audience

W5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

W6: Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

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Organization of the Writing Strand

Standards 7, 8, and 9 (Research) can include all three types of writing:

W7: conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

W8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

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Organization of the Writing Strand

Standard 10: Range of Writing

Wrapping it all Together:

Practice, Practice, Practice

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

The Writing Standards

Standard 10: Range of Writing

Standards 4, 5, 6: Production and Distribution

Standards 7, 8 , 9: Research

The Core:Standards 1, 2, 3:The Writing Types

Myth or Reality?

Complete the handout identifying whether each statement is a myth or reality.

Do not share responses. These will be revisited and discussed at the end of this session.

Common Core State StandardsAn Instructional Shift in Writing

Analytic Writing by Writing to Sources and Writing Using Sources—student writing (argument, informational, narrative) is in response to text, rather than de-contextualized writing prompts. Students stay grounded in the text, responding to high quality text-dependent questions with evidence-based written responses.

Rationale

According to ASCD*, 70% of writing that students have been doing in K-12 does not actually require reading from text.

Using textual evidence in writing and speaking is important on the NAEP national assessment and on international assessments as reported by PIRLS. This applies to both literature and informational text.

It makes writing authentic and relevant. Using evidence in writing and speaking is important for both career and college writing.

*ASCD is the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

How Do We Know that Students are Writing to Source?

Ask yourself:

Can students respond to the writing prompt without reading the text?

The Adventures of Tom Sawyerby Mark Twain

Tom and Huck discuss different methods of removing warts, such as saying charms and using dead cats and frogs. They speak in the dialect of their time period. Devise your own charm to remove warts. Use cultural ideas or artifacts from today that could be used in the charm. Develop a method that would incorporate items and dialect from today.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyerby Mark Twain

Tom hesitates to allow Ben to paint the fence. Explain why he hesitates. Analyze how his word choice reflects that hesitation and the effect Tom’s hesitations have on Ben.

Writing to Source

How does it look in the state unit writing?

How does this look in our units?

Grade 7 Unit, “The Choices We Make”

After reading Chapter 16 of Gifted Hands by Dr. Ben Carson, this lesson asks students to identify and describe the conflict and explain how it was impacted by Dr. Carson’s philosophy about “knowledge and choice.”

How does this look in our units?

Grade 7 Unit, “The Choices We Make”

After reading Gifted Hands by Ben Carson and other short works featuring people who have made important choices that have had major effects on their lives, this Lesson Seed asks students to write an essay on the unit essential questions, using the choices of the characters in some of the stories as evidence to support the writing.

How does this look in our units?

Grade 7 Unit, “The Choices We Make”

This lesson focuses on three texts that students have read in the unit by authors, Richard Peck, Ben Carson, and Sandra Cisneros. Students are asked to compose an analytic writing piece comparing and contrasting the writing styles of two of the three authors, using text examples to support their ideas.

Discussion:

How can we include more text dependent prompts in our lesson planning?

How can text dependent prompts be incorporated into routine writing for shortas well as extended time frames?

Why is it important to include text dependent prompts in student writing?

Writing to Sources

For Consideration . . .

Does this mean that we never have students write to prompts that are not text dependent?

NO!

Writing Using Sources

Writing, using text as a stimulus.

On the PARCC assessments, students could be asked to

write a narrative using a piece of text as a stimulus.

What could this look like?

Writing Using SourcesFrom our units . . .

Grade 1 Unit, “Teamwork”

This Lesson Seed asks students to read the short story, Mama’s Coming Home and write a narrative about a time when members of their families worked together as a team.

Text as a Stimulus for Narrative Writing

From our units . . .

Grade 7 Unit, “The Choices We Make”

This Seed asks students to use the choices made by the characters in the various unit texts to write a narrative about a choice. The student may choose to make this autobiographical.

An Instructional Consideration

Student writing that uses a blend of narrative and expository structures and demonstrates multiple writing purposes and multiple writing types.

What does Blending Writing Typesand Purposes Mean to You?

Good writers often mix . . .

Blending Writing

writing purposes—Often one piece of writing will combine two or more purposes in one piece of text—writing argument or to inform or explain.

writing types—narrative, exposition, and argument. Often one piece of writing will combine two or more types of writing in one piece of text.

Blending WritingSome Examples . . .

Writing an introduction—students can use a narrative/anecdote as a hook or lead

Writing an argument—insert a anecdote to support a claim or write an argument in a narrative structure

Writing a narrative essay—insert a section written in an expository structure (or vice versa).

Blending Writing

Writing for relevant real-life situations rarely isolates one purpose or one type of writing.

What is an essay?

According to Merriam-Webster: an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view

According to Dictionary.com: a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative

A Final Instructional Implication . . .

How does a narrative essay differ from an expository

essay?

The Narrative Essay

Summarizes events and experiences

Usually employs the first person

May mix scholarly and non-scholarly content

Voice may be conversational and first person

May be used as a medium for writing argument

Making Strategic Choices in Writing

What are the advantages of choosing to write an essay in a narrative versus expository structure?

The Narrative Essay

Allows for symbolism and emotion

Allows the reader to discover

Includes the human element

Voice may be conversational and first person

Allows for creativity and the use of vivid verbs

Allows for a sense of meaning that is hard to achieve in an objective, scholarly way

PARCC Assessments

What do we know about how writing will be assessed in the

PARCC Assessments?

What We Know Now!Grades 6-8

Write a summary distinct from personal opinions or judgments (Grade 6) or an objective summary (Grades 7/8)

Write an analytic essay that incorporates evidence from multiple sources.

Write a narrative using text as a stimulus or as a narrative essay.

Writing may blend types and purposes

*Note: this is subject to change as the PARCC assessments are written and revised.

For Discussion:

What are the Instructional Implications of the way we believe that PARCC will be assessing writing?

Myth or Reality?

Complete the last two columns of the handout identifying whether each statement is a myth or reality.

Compare your answers to those from the beginning of the session.

Discuss the differences with the members of your small group.

List your “Big Ideas”from the session on chart paper.

ReflectionDay 2, Session 2

3-2-1

3 Name 3 ideas or points from this session that caught your attention.

2 Name 2 ideas or points you plan to explore further.

1 Name 1 idea or point that you think is critical for discussion during your school team time later today.