Persuasive Essays for Fourth Graders

This month in many fourth grade classrooms, the genre of personal and persuasive essays is being taught. I have talked about the personal essay and how to form that in a few of my blogs this month. Since November is a short month with Thanksgiving vacation taking away days from the school calendar, the second part of the unit of study probably needs to be started the week of the 19th. That is just next week!

The format of the persuasive essay will be similar to the personal essay. In this essay the students will be asked to defend something they believe. Every day we are asked to explain ourselves or defend what we are thinking. That is why this genre is so important for our children. We want them to stand up for what they believe.

I would recommend going to the website: www.thisibelieve.org   Under the section: Explore, you will find a list of essays by students 18 and under.  Most of these essays are written by older students. However, there is one in particular that will help you with this genre. It is written by a five year old, Tarak McLain.  His is simply a list of Thirty Things I Believe.  There is an audio of him reading it also. After listening and discussing this list, it would be helpful for your students to take the time to make a similar list in their notebooks.

Using this list as a guide, the children can pick out something that means a lot to them. In a fifth grade classroom I worked in, a few students were writing about standing up to bullies. Another student wrote on why he believed you should be happy in any situation. After writing the thesis statement, they collected stories, quotes, examples of how this had worked for them or others they knew. These collections became the defense of their thesis. They became the paragraphs in the essay.

Of course, having a beginning paragraph that states the thesis statement and also grabs the reader, is important in this writing. Also, having a conclusion that summarizes the writer's thinking and shows how the thesis statement has been supported is important!

Having this website to begin your short time with this essay, along with writing the introduction and conclusion, will help you and your students to come away with interesting belief statements.

Monday Reading-November, Picture Book Month

For today's selections I want to share a couple beautiful picture books. I chose these two for a couple reasons.  First of all, November is Picture Book Month!  There is a wonderful web site for teachers at www.PictureBookMonth.com  You will find many treasures there! 

The other reason I chose these two is because Veterans' Day is being celebrated today. These books help us show children what patriotism is all about. Both of these books have the most amazing pictures.

The Pledge of Allegiance is a book written in remembrance of September 11, 2001. The pictures are child friendly and perfect. The book is simply written to repeat the pledge, but has a page dedicated to the pictures used in the book. It also has a section called: What Does the Pleadge of Allegiance Mean? This Scholastic book is a great addition to any library.

America the Beautiful is written by Katharine Lee Bates and illustrated by Chris Gall. The poem by Katharine Lee Bates and illustrated by Chris Gall celebrate America's majesty. Gall is the great-great grandnephew of Katharine Bates.  Who better to share pictures of this beautiful song?

Constructed Response--Open-ended Questioning

Many classrooms are using constructed responses to prepare students for those open-ended essay questions that are used on standardized tests. These questions are to show if the reader demonstrates cognitive knowledge and reasoning. Looking at the Common Core Standards, students are to not only give an answer but also demonstrate evidence to support that answer.  One new way of doing this is introduced in the website:http://www.brighthubeducation.com/help-with-writing/33366-constructed-response-essay-question/

The site gives the acronym "RACE"---reword, answer, cite, and explain. It is stated that if students can reword the answer, answer the question and then cite evidence and finally explain their thinking, they will do well on the exam. The part that usually trips up the reader/writer is the part where they need to cite the evidence and explain their thinking. This part of the exam is meant to show how well the reader comprehended and could use inferences.

R-rewording the question: Simply turn the question into a statement. If the question is: How do you know Kay likes winter?  The rewording would start with: "I know Kay likes winter because..."

A-answering the question: Continue on with the first statement: "...because in the story it said she loves to go sledding."

C-citing evidence: Using specific details that show how much Kay loves sledding and even quoting a line from the story, would be proof for the statement.

E-explain the answer: Now is the time for the reader to give reasoning for why s/he thinks this is evidence. This must be a complete explanation in order to get the most points for the question. This is not meant to demonstrate opinion, but to show how to extract information and support it.

Sharing this idea with students is just the first part of helping them to do better with this type of question. Doing several of the questions and answers in whole group teaching, having the students work with partners in active engagment and then allowing them time to work on their own with support will ensure success when they encounter this type of questioning.

Informational Writing--Non Fiction Picture Books

This month many fifth graders are working on Informational Writing and putting these pieces into picture books.  Last  month I had the opportunity to work with a fifth grade class as they did these books. The outcome was amazing. The books all looked different...no cookie-cutter books here. There were huge, BIG books. There were books with pages that had been torn around the edges to give it an "old" look. There were typed books and handwritten books. This teacher had taken subjects from their social studies to have the children choose what they would do research on and write their book.  They did content writing. Each student knew who their audience would be...4th graders coming into 5th grade next year or younger students who didn't know much about the subject. Knowing that helped the writer know what research to do.

How did they get to that point? What did they do to come up with such interesting, unique books?

Writing these books is very similar to doing the Feature Articles that we have done in the past. The format will be different for publishing and the text features might be more interesting and diverse, but still the same thinking is behind it. So, because of that, I will refer you to the All Write website. On the left side of that page you will find lessons for "Feature Article" Writing. This will give you some lessons to help out with this genre.

Hopefully, you have been immersing the students in this type of writing by reading lots of nonfiction picture books. You will do reading as readers and then reading as writers to see what things those authors do to teach the reader. The children should come up with an author or book that they can use as a mentor text. This will help them to have a form to follow as they begin their writing.

Allowing the students to have a vision for what their book will look like, is something that will give them choice and freedom.  This will help them to have ownership in this writing. Another thing that is so important is, as I stated before, having an idea of who the audience is, will help that, too.  Thinking ahead and planning a celebration at the end of this unit lets the students know that their book is not going to simply go into a folder or get graded and sent home. Sharing their books is a great way to help students to love writing and therefore become better writers! 

Have fun with this unit as you do research and learn along the way!

Realistic Fiction--Day-by-Day Lessons

Writing realistic fiction is a perfect step from the unit of study of personal narrative. However, it is a new unit of study for many primary classrooms. To begin this unit, it might help to give the students structure to follow. Writing this genre is new, so the students will need to have the teacher modeling and doing a shared story with the entire class, in order to get the idea of how to begin writing. To do that, I will be sharing an idea for a day-by-day lesson plan to go with this unit. This is something that I saw done in a fourth grade classroom while I was studying under Carl Anderson with the All Write mentors.  Here is how it goes:

Reading LOTS of fiction during reading time, is a MUST for this unit. Doing read-alouds with realistic fiction and discussing the idea of problem/solution is so important.

Day One--- Come up with a character for the whole class.  Choose the sex, size, name, other features (hair color, eye color, type of clothes, etc) and draw it on chart paper. Now go deeper with the character. What does s/he like to do? Does s/he like to play sports? What does s/he do in spare time? Now think about what s/he feel about things. What does s/he love? What food? Have pets? Personality...caring? bossy? shy? bold? I suggest putting thought bubbles for the feelings and thinking and a heart to enter the character's favorite things.  After doing this as a class....the children do this on their own.

Day Two---You will be coming up with people who are important to your character. Do this again with the class character first. Make a list of people who are important.  List names: 5 family members, 3 friends, 3 other important people like teachers, coaches, neighbors. After doing this as a class...children do this on their own.

Day Three--You will be working on the setting for the story today. Think about where your character will spend MOST of their time...maybe their bedroom, the playground, grandma's house, the football field...Close your eyes and see it. Really get specific with colors and details. Now you will draw a map of it on chart paper. After doing this as a class...children do this on their own.

Day Four---You should now know your character REALLY well, kind of like your best friend. You will come up with a problem for your character today. Think about things that the character liked...what could be a problem with that? If they like football, would they have a problem getting on the team? Does the character have an older sibling that could give them trouble? Write a few problems for your class character on chart paper. Pick a problem and come up with a few solutions...remember, you will need more than one way to solve it so the story gets interesting. After you have done this as a class...children will do it on their own.

Day Five--???:  Now you will do normal writing mini lessons such as: good leads, using a story arc, the power of sound, using dialogue, show not tell, good endings. Let your students' writing direct your lessons.

Hopefully, this will help as you travel through this  new adventure of writing realistic fiction!

Interpretive Essays Using Book Characters

I spent Sunday afternoon at Jefferson Point, an outside shopping mall in Fort Wayne.  No big deal, lots of people do that. What made that day's visit special was meeting with two fifth grade teachers from different school districts. The idea was to share ideas from their classrooms...and share they did...for over two  hours on a SUNDAY!  They talked about how they had taught specific genres in writing. They shared work their students had done. And, finally, they shared email addresses so the networking could continue.

 One of the classrooms is finishing up their interpretive essays with characters this week. In this room, the students had posters with a name of a character on each one. They were all from their read-aloud book: because of mr. terupt  by Rob Buyea. The posters were placed around the room. Students were paired with a partner and in their notebooks they were to list characteristices for each character. Then, as partners, they went from poster to poster to add characteristics in marker. After several minutes, they shared the posters.

 

This class could take one of those fiction people  from their read aloud book or pick someone from a former read-aloud or picture book they had read. They could even pick someone from a story in their basal. The essay would have the same format as the personal essays they had just written earlier this month. 

The students picked a thesis statement for their character. But first, the whole class made a list of possible statements for several of the read-aloud characters. Students could use one of those or do their own for their character. Remember, it didn't have to be from this book!

As the students finished their pieces, they would check the rubric to be sure they had completed every area. At the end of writing time, everyone sat in a huge circle. They each shared what character they had written about and from what book. How exciting it was to hear students speak confidently about writing in such an important genre!

Great Fall Books for Read Alouds

Both of the books I am talking about today are by my favorite author, Cynthia Rylant. These books are a 'must read to students' for November. They have been around for a long time and are nothing new, but I had to remind teachers that they are out there. These are books that students can hear over and over and over and still learn something new from them. I know I do!

In November, just makes you feel warm and cozy. Even though we know that winter is around the corner, coming fast, this book helps you feel that maybe that's okay after all.  The craft in this book would fill a writer's workshop for a whole month of mini lessons.  From the descriptive words and phrases to the repeated lines, it is full of ways to make your writing better. The illustrations by Jill Kastner are amazing. I just LOVE this book and look forward to November when I can read it again!

I can't read Scarecrow without hearing Katie Wood Ray's voice reading it and even picture her delivery of it.  She would read it in her Carolina voice as she walked around the room.  No book in sight. She really wasn't reading it, she was reciting it. I didn't look at the typed text in front of me as she read...I watched her. She loved that story. She believed in that story. She WAS that story.  She always told us that we should know the books we read so well that we don't have to look at the words. She made that book sing for me. I could actually see that scarecrow in the field.

Again, Cynthia Rylant has used loads of craft in her writing. Again, there are tons of mini lessons in this one book.  If I had to pick only two books to be in my library to use in workshop, these would be the two. They are so full of craft that you have everything you need to help children be great writers.

One of my former second graders, who is now in college, used Scarecrow as her mentor text when she was a student in my classroom.  Here is her story about The Rocking Horse.  Thanks, Paige!



 

His legs are made from oak wood.

His back is made from oak wood.

His tail is made from oak wood,

even his head is made from oak wood.

But maybe his mane was made

from that special cloth that your grandmother gave you back in 1983.

 

So, do you think he is just there to be a decoration?

Or do you think he is there to brighten your day

and  to make everything seem easier?

 

Well, maybe he doesn't talk and maybe he doesn't walk,

but he is still there to make you happier

or to be your friend.

Or maybe he is just there to sit around

and rock in the breeze on a breezy fall morning.