Writing Workshop Session 7 (Research and Information Writing)

Constructing Text with Solid Bricks of Information

* What you need: Article: "Malala the Powerful"

*Make Chart titled "Information Writers Combine a Variety of Information"

*Make Cart titled "Recommended Transition words"

Connection: Think of your best writing EVER (since you started writing)...

Tell a partner....

Did any of you pick your latest chapter?...

Didn't think so. But why not?

 So then it is time to raise the quality of your writing!!!

Today I want to teach you that to write an information text well, the writer constructs the text not with airy words, but with solid bricks of information: 

• "Quotations"
• Facts
• Anecdotes
• Numbers

Teaching:

Whenever I want to write something I look to mentor texts to provide direction.  So together we are going to read 'Malala the Powerful' by Kristin Lewis and ask ourselves...

What can we notice about the way Lewis constructs her text out of bricks of information?

What does she do that we can do in our own writing?

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=cGVuZGVyLmsxMi5uYy51c3xqb3NlcGhfZ3JpZmZpbnxneDo0YmNhZWM0NDIwMTJhNjA3

After reading to the class, divide the class into clusters and have each group examine one portion of the article.  

Then make a class list of the kinds of information included in the mentor text. (page 67/68)

Active Engagement

Reread your chapters, annotating them with marginal notes naming the kinds of information they had already included.  Do you need to revise to include more varied information?

Mid-workshop teaching:

Using transition words 

Link

Some of you may have to do more research before you revise.

Share

Set students up to teach their next chapter to a partner, using a selected text structure.

Examples of text structures:

Homework: Write another chapter, leave wholes where you need specific research, but get the basics of the chapter off to a good start, write at least 2 pages tonight.