Unusual Text Structures: Geographical Order

If you're working with text structure, you may have noticed that there are some books and texts that just can't be placed in the typical categories of chronological order, compare and contrast, problem/solution, cause and effect, and description.

It can be fun to take a closer look at books that show unusual text structures. Often, these different organizational patterns are very obvious and easy for students to notice. Two of my favorite examples are by Marilyn Singer. I'd call the organization of these books geographical order, as the author moves systematically around the world to explain her ideas.

Nine o' Clock Lullaby: What's happening at 9:00? In this book, the author shows people around the world at the same moment in time.

On the Same Day in March: Written by the same author, this book goes around the world and looks at weather on the same March day.

While geographical order is not one of the official text structures, it's still interesting to think about how different authors choose to organize their ideas.  These kinds of discussions can become a building block to more complex conversations about text structure.

The Writing Process and Academic Vocabulary

Every fall, I spend time teaching my writers about the writing process. They've experienced it before, of course, but I like for all students to experience the process and learn how it can help them to create stronger pieces of writing.

But the word process is an important academic vocabulary word for students to learn. It's not only important for them in writing class. The word process is also important in science, as students learn about natural processes. Students also need to use this word in math, to explain how to solve problems. Process is an important word!

This year, I started out with "process charades". Students completed a vocabulary word map with the definition of process, examples, non-examples, and a picture. We used the definition that a process is a set of steps. Then, we took turns acting out processes that we know how to do. I illustrated our processes (pretty poorly!) by putting pictures of the steps on the board. Kids were pretty ingenious with the processes that they chose.

Once students had a good handle on the process charades, I gave them a set of notecards. They could think of any process that they knew how to do, from brushing their teeth to mowing the lawn. They illustrated the cards with one step on each card. (Little note: I've taken a cue from the kindergarten teacher and started giving students thin black markers and colored pencils for these sorts of activities. The quality of their work really improves.)

Finally we were ready to move into the writing process! I had already made a simple checklist of steps in the writing process, along with a short writing prompt guiding students to write a paragraph about a process that they know how to do. Now, students saw the writing process, and they were pretty excited that they got to check off a step right away. (They had already done the planning step of making their notecards.)

Yes, following a process to write about a process...it's tough to say, and gets the kids giggling, but they are learning the word.

Exploring Nature

I've decided to start putting some of my nature pictures and text into another blog, A Kid's Guide to Exploring Nature.

This blog will have short, easy-to-read texts about different natural items that kids are likely to see--milkweed, caterpillars, mole crabs, jewelweed, and so on. Each text will be accompanied by pictures. My hope is that it will be like a short nature walk...and an easy introduction to blogs.



 

Are you nervous now?

Sharing is tough at the beginning of the year. I was happily surprised by how quickly students got to work with writing this year (thank you, third grade teachers!). But productive writing does not always mean productive sharing. Even though most students already knew each other, we're still not a cohesive group. Students are reading their work, but there aren't many questions or comments. Stories aren't coming to life.

Today, I tried to pull some of the most prolific students to share. One kid had written four pages! Each day, he started a new piece, and managed to write an entire page in our 15 minutes of journal time. I wanted to get him to the front of the room to share his writing process with the rest of the class. Outside of class, he seems talkative and confident, but was oddly reluctant to share. Finally the truth came out-- "I'm a little shy when I have to read my writing," he told me.

Of course! I totally understood. And this shyness gets to the heart of why our sharing time just has felt stilted. "I understand that you feel shy," I told him. "I sometimes feel that way too. Sometimes I go and talk in front of other teachers, and I feel nervous." I paused for a moment. "But our writing class is a safe place. Everyone in here is going to share, and so everyone feels responsible to be polite."

I could tell from his face that this pep talk wasn't convincing, so I decided to go the fame and fortune route. "Besides, we are all so curious about what you have written. How many of you would like to hear what ____ has been writing?"

Hands shot up. In the face of this universal acclaim, how could he resist? He consented to come to the author's chair and read a bit of his writing, just a few sentences. I pulled out some of the interesting bits of his process--how he writes about things that have happened to him, how he thinks about new things to write about each night, how he comes ready to put his ideas on paper.

Just as I was finishing, an entire team of administrators came into my room. This was a scheduled walk-through, on the calendar for weeks, but I still felt a shiver of apprehension. And then there was ___, at my elbow. "Are you nervous, Mrs. Kissner?" he asked--quietly enough so that our guests couldn't hear, but loudly enough for the rest of the class to hear.

The question caught me off guard. Should I put on my game face and act super-confident, or admit to my apprehension?

I decided to come clean. "Yes. I think I am, a little bit," I told him, and smiled, and the class smiled too.

"It'll be fine," he whispered.

What a moment! These are the things that bring a class together--the in-jokes, the moments of sharing, the times that don't go quite as planned but turn out much, much better. Each of these moments helps to build the writing community. Tomorrow, I think, sharing will feel a little more natural.

Ice Cream Making...Classroom Style

My school has many wonderful qualities. Situated high on a hill, it offers beautiful views of orchards and wooded hillsides. The simple three-hallway layout makes for easy navigation. Our faculty is small enough that a 13 X 9 pan can feed everyone.

Our lack of air conditioning is only an issue for a few days out of the year.

But on those days, it's really hot! Last week, while I was teaching about reading to perform a task, I thought I'd have kids practice by making plastic bag ice cream. (There are lots of recipes and activities online for this...just search and you'll get a long list.) Why ice cream? I knew that it involved playing around with ice, and I hoped it would make us all cooler! I tweaked a recipe, formatting it for easy reading, and scraped together the supplies.

What an adventure! It was memorable, from leaking bags to ice that melted too quickly. I learned several things:

1. You will always need more ice, especially on a 90 degree day.

2. The value of a "stunt classroom" is unparalleled. (For this year, we have a vacant classroom on our hallway...it's wonderful to have a place to do messy things, and then leave the clean-up for the end of the day.)

3. More on the philosophical side: Most kids, and most adults too, would rather see a demonstration than just read directions. I struggled with this as we were making ice cream. On the one hand, I wanted them to practice reading the recipe. However, they knew that I knew more about the technique than was written on the paper. I couldn't blame them for pumping me for more information! (They asked questions like, "Why do we need the rock salt?" and "Why do we put the small bag inside the large bag?")

4. Some fourth graders find "What do you do before..." and "Which step follows..." questions to be quite difficult. Even carrying out the steps doesn't completely fix this problem for them. I'm wondering why this might be so. Does this carry over to other kinds of reading and thinking also? Is it a developmental issue that will resolve itself, or do these students need some targeted help?

5. Playing around with the ice really did help us all to feel cooler.

Text Structure for Young Readers

The Powerpoint that I made over the summer is now up at Slideshare. You can download it here. (It is a large file!)

Diary of a...

This year, I started off journal writing time by reading Diary of a Worm. This funny book is useful for so many lessons. I used it to show students all of the different things that they can write about in their journals--lists of things they like and dislike, stories about their day, stories of how they have gotten in trouble, and so forth.

About five students in each class took the lesson one step further and started to write their own funny diaries. How fun! Since I'm still observing the students carefully to find out what they are like, I was excited to see them taking off with such a creative kind of writing.

And they had different methods. One student took the picture book and went through it page by page. At first, I was worried that he was copying. Then I saw that he was writing the Diary of a Dragon by looking at what Doreen Cronin wrote in Diary of a Worm, and then trying to think of a similar situation for his dragon. What an interesting writing process!

On the other side of the room, a different student was trying to write the Diary of a Banana. But I could see that he was having some trouble. Instead of using first person point of view, he was writing in third person, and seemed to be struggling to find ideas. This shows me that he's working on using different points of view in writing, but isn't quite sure of how to do it. Perfect for an early teaching point.

Yet another student had started writing Diary of a Bee. She'd filled up half a page, but then seemed stuck. I showed her how to use a field guide to insects to find out more facts about honeybees, facts that she might be able to use to write her funny diary.

I've never had so many fiction pieces so early in the year. Usually, the writing is all personal narratives for the first few weeks as students work through topics related to sports, their summer vacations, and their families. I'm intrigued and excited to see how these students develop!