Mentor Text Back to School Theme!

It is Sunday and I am just in time to link up with my BBB's at Collaboration Cuties for their Mentor Text linky!!  

This week's topic is back to school mentor texts!

Last year I used the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes for the first time when working on building writing stamina at the beginning of the year.  The students really got into it because what nine year old doesn't like to talk about their name?

Amazon.com review:  Until Chrysanthemum started kindergarten, she believed her parents when they said her name was perfect. But on the first day of school, Chrysanthemum begins to suspect that her name is far less than perfect, especially when her class dissolves into giggles upon hearing her name read aloud. That evening, Chrysanthemum's parents try to piece her self-esteem back together again with comfort food and a night filled "with hugs, kisses, and Parcheesi." But the next day Victoria, a particularly observant and mean-spirited classmate, announces that Chrysanthemum's name takes up 13 letters. "That's half the letters in the alphabet!" she adds. Chrysanthemum wilts. Pretty soon the girls are making playground threats to "pluck" Chrysanthemum and "smell her."

Kevin Henkes has great compassion for the victims of childhood teasing and cruelties--using fresh language, endearing pen-and-ink mouse characters, and realistic dialogue to portray real-life vulnerability. He also has great compassion for parents, offering several adult-humor jokes for anxious mommies and daddies. On the surface, the finale is overly tidy and the coincidences unbelievable. But in the end, what sustains Chrysanthemum, as well as this story, is the steadfast love and support of her family. And because of this, the closure is ultimately convincing and utterly comforting. ALA Notable Book, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Horn Book Fanfare Honor List. (Ages 4 to 8) --Gail Hudson

In addition to the writing stamina activity that I used last year (discussed below), this book would be great for the beginning of the year when discussing classroom expectations and  how we treat our classmates!

I read about using this mentor in the Notebook Know-How by Aimee Buckner (pgs. 15-16).  

I downloaded these handouts to use with the writing about your name strategy from Super Pig and Tyrant King.  Click here to get her handouts.

My experience last fall using this activity:  First, I had students complete the first worksheet in class.  Then, I assigned the "Investigating My Name Interview" for homework to interview a parent/guardian.  The next day, without discussing the "Work on Writing" rules, I had students free write for a few minutes about their name in their first journal entry.  I told them that they could write anything.  Ready, set, go!  I was curious how the students would handle work on writing.  I have the top third of the 4th graders in my class.  So, the first student raised their hand immediately.  I walked over to this bright student and he asked me, "What am I supposed to write about my name?".  I replied, "Anything you want.  You have a lot of information."

Next, a student raised his hand and said, "I'm done."  This was after writing two sentences.  

This was a great learning experience for me to see where the students are in their writing stamina.  We have already began Read to Self and made an anchor chart, modeled the correct/incorrect behaviors and have been working on stamina (they only lasted 2 min. 30 sec. the first time we tried it...and these are the top readers in the grade!).  

We discussed the percentage of time spent working on reading vs. working on writing since they were young.  Most students agreed that it was about 80% reading and 20% writing.  They really have had very little practice writing about a topic freely.  Their name (how they got it, how they feel about it, etc.) is something they should be able to write about for 5 minutes, especially after interviewing their parents the night before!  I mean, they had the worksheets right on their desk and students were "done" without including any of the information they learned about their name!

After discussing the Work on Writing expectations and why we need to practice writing freely, the students did a much better job the next time with their stamina and there were no more hands in the air.  They wrote for an additional 10 minutes about their name.   

The most difficult part for me has been to just let them write without butting in over their shoulder.  I really want them to get comfortable writing without worrying that they are doing it "wrong".

Looking back at this journal entry from September now really is encouraging!  The students grew so much as writers throughout the year.  Wow!!  Back to school will be coming quickly and we will all have another set of kiddos to transform in about 9 months:)  Are teachers amazing or what?!?  :)

Be sure to check back at Collaboration Cuties for all the other back to school mentor text ideas!

Planning a Giveaway...and STEP-UP to WRITING!!

It just creeped up on me...Wow!  I can't believe I have over 200 followers:)  Thank you to everyone that follows my little ol' blog.  Since I began this journey in July, the blogging world has really revolutionized my teaching and I can't thank you all enough!  So, I am planning a 200 follower give away with a great prize ($30 gift card) and would like to see if there is anyone interested in donating a teacher's product from their store for my giveaway.  My sweet friend Kelly from Teaching Fourth has already volunteered.  So, please leave a comment if you could help me out.  I would be so grateful!!  I would like to start the giveaway Saturday, October 6th.

UPDATE:  I have several blogging friends that have so generously agreed to donate a product for my giveaway!  See the awesome list of bloggers in the comments.  Thank you!!  I can always use more volunteers too:)  I have created this button in anticipation of this giveaway!

We just finished our third full week of school and have gone full swing into implementing three components of Daily 5 (Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Work on Writing).  I am linking up with Amanda at Teaching Maddeness and her Friday Flashback Linky.

My 4th grade students have really had a tough time with writing stamina and we have only been working on "easy" writing topics.  I started strategies from Step-Up to Writing this week.  I love this resource that our district has implemented for about 10 years now!  Does anyone else out there use it?

I also made up this writing notebook rubric based on Aimee Buckner's rubric in the Notebook-Know How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook.  Students glued it to the inside cover of their journals to refer to throughout the year.  You can see it here at my TPT store.

I plan to use this rubric to grade their journals every 5 weeks.  How do you assess your writing journals?  I think it will help making students accountable for finishing their entries and taking their CUPS (capitalization, usage, punctuation, and spelling) more serious.  They are so relaxed with grammar at this time of year!  

So backing up three weeks....this is how our "Work on Writing" has taken shape so far....

We decorated writing journals and they are a big hit.  Students really seem to love their journals.  You can read about them here.  After starting the training for work on writing (expectations, anchor chart, correct/incorrect modeling), we worked on our stamina writing about our names (see post here).  I used this book with the lesson:

The most difficult part for me has been to just let them write without butting in over their shoulder.  I really want them to get comfortable writing without worrying that they are doing it "wrong".

Next, students wrote about three items from their decorated journal covers and why they are important to them.  We also did an entry using this prompt:  One time I was in trouble and I really should not have been was...  This was based on reading Tales of Fourth Grade Nothing and the part when Peter gets in trouble when Fudge falls off the jungle gym and knocks out his teeth.

So, I just let the students write all three of those times and really work on their stamina.  They did improve each time.  Then, this past Thursday, we did our first lesson on writing a paragraph using a Step-Up strategy.  Students write a topic sentence, reason/facts/details, explain reason/facts/details, and conclusion and highlight each part.  The topic sentence and conclusion are green, the reasons are yellow, and when they explain a reason it is highlighted pink.

My 4th graders always struggle the most with their topic sentence (they want to answer the questions and give a lot of details in the first sentence) and the "explains" (pink) are very difficult as well.  I posted these notes on the SMART board and I wrote the sample paragraph together with them.  I always model coming up with a paragraph "on the spot" and how I erase and change things around that they don't like.  We discuss how good writers do that and I also model rereading what I write throughout the process.

The students took notes and copied the "sample" paragraph starting in the back of their journals.  I am trying something new this year as suggested in the Notebook Know-How by Aimee Buckner.  Students are recording free write journal entries starting in the front of their journals and working their way to the back and they are recording class notes starting in the back of the journal and working their way to the front.  

My students were required to write a topic sentence for a paragraph about a hobby of their choice for a ticket out the door.  This took more than five minutes for 24 students since many had sentence fragments, run-ons, and were trying to write most of the paragraph in one sentence.  We will keep working on it!

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend:)  Remember to check back next Saturday for my giveaway!