Unit 6: Breathing Life Into Essays 4th Grade Guiding Question: 1. How can we model for our writers the ability to select a big idea to advance and to defend that idea with support or evidence? Teaching Points:

Indicators of Understanding:

Our writers can….. 1. Continue to draw on strategies for generating writing and revisit possible stories to refine and focus. 1. Collecting Ideas as Essayists 2. Make plans for his/her writing by redeveloping entries 2. Growing Essay Ideas in Notebooks into short story pieces. 3. Contrasting Narrative and Non-Narrative Structures 3. Claim and advance a big idea by providing support 4. Using Conversational Prompts 5. Generating Essay Writing From Narrative Writing through various angles, observations, examples etc. 6. Finding and Crafting Thesis Statements 4. Construct a well-crafted piece, including focused 7. Boxes and Bullets details, an introduction, and a conclusion. 8. Learning to Outgrow a First Thesis 9. Composing and sorting Mini-Stories 5. Develop the heart of the story to project voice. 10. Seeking Outside Sources 6. Continue to work through the writing process at his/her 11. Creating Parallelism in Lists own pace; creating entries, drafting, revising, editing, 12. Revising Toward Honesty and publishing. 13. Gathering a Variety of Information 7. Use correct capitalization and punctuation. The 14. Organizing for Drafting student correctly spells high frequency words and 15. Building a Cohesive Draft appropriately uses various grammar/convention 16. Writing Introductions and Conclusions techniques with support. 17. Editing Run On Sentences and Sentence Fragments 8. Uses clear and concise language; considering word 18. Celebrating Journeys of Thought choice and sentence structure.

Note: Sessions 1-5 may have been covered in Unit 3, Unit 6 begins with Finding and Crafting Thesis Statements

Conferring

Students will be able to . . .

Vocabulary

Resources

Readiness Standards: 4.15 B-D Develop drafts by categorizing ideas and organizing them into paragraphs 4.17 A Write about important personal experiences 4.18 Ai,ii, iii Create brief compositions that establish a central idea, include supporting sentences with simple facts, details and explanations, and contain a concluding statement 4.15 C Revise drafts for coherence, organization, use of simple and compound sentences, and audiences 4.15 D Edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling using a teacher developed rubric 4.20 A Use and understand the function of various parts of speech in the context of reading, writing, and speaking 4.20 B Use the complete subject and predicate in a sentence 4.21 C Recognize and use punctuation marks 4.22 A Spell words with more advanced orthographic patterns and rules

Conferring is a conversation between a teacher and a student about his/her writing. A teacher begins asking students probing, open-ended questions about their writing. Then focusing on one writing strategy/technique that can be used in their writing. A conference may sound like:  

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Supporting Standards: 4.18 Ai,ii, iii Create brief compositions that establish a central idea, include supporting sentences with simple facts, details and explanations, and contain a concluding statement 4.20 C Use complete simple and compound sentences with correct subject-verb agreement 4.21 B-C Use correct Capitalization and punctuation 4.22 A- B Spell basewords and roots with affixes 4.22 C Spell commonly used homophones 4.22 D Use spelling patterns, rules, print, and electronic resources to determine and check correct spellings

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When rereading a draft, ask, “Does this make sense?” If needed, use a story mountain visual graphic to help plan the structure of the story. Ask, “How can this visual help you plan the structure of your story?” If needed, use story boxes to plan the structure/sequence of the story. Ask, “Can you see the flow of your story better?” When remembering to use paragraphs, ask “When would be a good time to transition to a new paragraph?” When using a revising and editing checklist, ask “Are there places in your story that need to be rewritten?” “Do you see areas that need editing marks for corrections?” When looking for places to insert commas, ask “Do you see areas that need commas?” “Can you read this part aloud to me? Does it make sense?” “Are there enough details here to paint a picture in your head?” “Are you showing in your writing rather than telling?”

expository essay thesis central idea transitions composition draft revise edit publish

Mentor Text Suggestions:  “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King  “Spaghetti” by Cynthia Rylant  Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting  Rudi’s Pond by Eve Bunting  Welcome to the Green House by Jane Yolen