When writing informational texts, it is important to think always about writing for an audience. Writers can ask, “What do I want to teach readers at the beginning? How can I draw in my reader? How can I give the reader an overview?” Writers will want to examine the sorts of leads we use when writing informational texts.
You’ll probably find that the first chapters your children write are fairly bare-bones, so early on you’ll teach students to elaborate. One place to begin is by teaching your students that it can help writers to embed anecdotes into our texts, taking what we know about small-moment writing to craft little stories that illustrate whatever we are teaching. Then, too, it can help to teach writers the discipline of writing in “twin sen- tences.” Often it is good discipline to write a second sentence elaborating on what the
A CURRICULARPLAN FOR THEWRITINGWORKSHOP, GRADE3, 2011–2012 79 © 2011 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.
first sentence said. Say I wrote, “There are many kinds of dogs.” I plan to go on to talk about one kind of dog that I especially love. Before doing so, though, I can say to myself, “I need one more sentence to go with that first one.” This time, I write: “There are many kinds of dogs. They are divided into major categories such as hunting dogs, retrieving dogs, and the like, and within each broad category, there are scores of spe- cific breeds; many breeds come in three sizes—big, medium, and small—although the names for those differ by dog.”
There are other ways of elaborating. Instead of simply writing a “twin sentence,” writers can become accustomed to moving up and down a level of abstraction (although you may not call it that). What we mean is this: if a writer has written a fact such as, “Dogs eat dog biscuits,” then the writer can try to write an example: “Dog biscuits are often shaped like little bones.” Writers can also elaborate by relating whatever we’ve just said to something the reader may know. For example, “Dogs eat dog biscuits. Dog biscuits are like cookies and cakes for your dog.” Of course, writers can also elaborate by evaluating information or giving an opinion. You will find exam- ples of all this and more in your mentor texts and in the examples of student writing you’ll find on the TCRWP website.
As the unit proceeds and as you have time to teach more deeply, you may want to spend some time helping your student writers become analytic thinkers about their subject. Think about what this means: if you put a bees’ nest in front of kids and asked them to analyze it, what would you expect they’d think about? Analytic thought often involves looking at a subject and thinking about the parts of it. Take any topic—say, Lego pieces. What might it mean to think about “the parts” of a Lego block? But a writer could also write about the way people love playing with Lego pieces. Or a writer could write about the parts of the process of building something (that might be like writing about the parts of the writing process). Then, too, writers could think about the causes related to their topic or the relationships or the questions.
Your young writers will need to revise—just as they will need to choose a topic and draft—continually throughout the unit. You’ll teach a repertoire of tools for revision and reasons to revise, and expect them to revise any one chapter more than once as they come to learn new ways to revise. So early on, you may teach your writers to revise, making sure their draft can be chunked according to subtopic and anything extraneous is removed. Later you may teach your writers to be sure they answer read- ers’ questions when those questions are asked. Your writers will presumably be writ- ing Chapter 2 or Chapter 3 once you teach this, and they will need to revisit completed chapters using this new lens.
In time, you may teach your writers to be sure they have incorporated the technical language of their topic, included diagrams and drawings to help readers understand, written with precision and detail that will keep their readers’ attention, integrated what- ever they admire from published work, and so forth. Teach your writers to look for the gaps in their piece, searching for places they could say more, spruce up, even remove.
Children will look to mentor texts throughout the process, but you’ll especially use them to show writers how to incorporate the features of this genre into their books.
A CURRICULARPLAN FOR THEWRITINGWORKSHOP, GRADE3, 2011–2012 80 © 2011 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.
Children will love noticing how the author of their mentor text used illustrations and diagrams as teaching tools. You may also teach children to add other features such as glossaries, indexes, and back-cover blurbs to their finished pieces. During reading workshop, students will have noticed how headings help readers know what’s to come and how the font size of these headings and subheadings cue readers to the importance of the information that follows. They can now use this in their writing, creating a chapter heading as well as smaller subheadings for later, more specific information.