Stanford Trees

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Writers act out their pieces to revise and clarify their steps

The Stanford Trees had SO much fun in Writer's Workshop this week as we grew as informational writers.

We have been using author Gail Gibbons to study several mentor texts for informational writing. On Monday, we explored examples of How-To's to recognize features we might include in our own writing.

Luis points out that How-To's often have a title

Joel and Daisy read

Dominic, Alejandro, Doriahn, Valeria and Adriana find how-to features

Later this week, we learned that Writers act out their how-to's to revise and clarify their steps. The Stanford Trees helped me revise my writing when I read my "How-To Carve a Pumpkin" piece to Ms. O'Rourke as she tried to follow my steps. Her actions really helped me see where my writing could be more clear for my reader!

William helped catch the pulp as Ms. O'Rourke scooped out the pulp and seeds

Writers helped me revise my words to clarify my meaning

Ms. O'Rourke works hard to carve a great face on our pumpkin!

After my mini-lesson, writers got to work reading their How-To's to their partners, as their partners acted out their instructions. Writers shared tremendous realizations about how much this process helped them revise and clarify their pieces.

Doriahn acts out Angelica's instructions on "How-To Take Care of a Baby"

William acts out Abraham's piece on "How to Swim"

Anthony acts out Valeria's instructions for "How to Write a Piece"

We also learned about "Helper Features"--features that we can include in our How-To to help our reader understand how-to do something. Features include numbered steps, a how-to title, a "warning," a list of items to get, and an illustration.

I took great pleasure conferring with writer Kamarah:
me: "What are you working on as a writer today? Kamarah:"As a writer, I'm working on Warnings for my How-To. I've just been thinking...Gail Gibbons is like the best writer of all time. She has helped me so much in how to be a better writer. Like today, I learned about helpers: I put in Warnings to tell my reader to get help from an adult when carving a pumpkin."

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Colombia!

Colombian line art! To prepare for our Latin American Celebration, we studied the country of Colombia. We learned about one of their art forms--line art. Here are some images of Stanford Trees hard at work on their line drawings.

Great Readers Make Mental Images

As readers, we have been learning about how great readers create mental images as they read. This helps them to really visualize what's happening in the story. As we read various poems, readers chose the poem that helped them create the most vivid mental image.

Readers discuss their different mental images about the poem "Sad"

readers discuss their different mental images about the poem "Little Cat"

readers discuss their different mental images about the poem "Snowflakes"

readers discuss their different mental images about the poem "Dragon Flying"

When we came together to discuss our mental images, we had a great realization: our mental images are different, because our schema is different! Readers shared about their mental images, and learned more about how special we all are as we all have our own schema that helps us interact with text!

Kamarah shares her mental image with Anthony

Readers are thinkers!

Here are our readers sharing their mental images after Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf! Readers compared their different mental images, and were amazed at how their schema is so different! They then listened to the story again, and noticed how their partner's mental image influenced their own as they heard the text a second time.

Publishing Party

The Stanford Trees worked SO hard to grow as narrative writers. For the last eight weeks, they have learned the process great writers take, by planning a small moment, sketching and labeling, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing! They blossomed into tremendous writers who write small moments with voice, expression, and great detail.

Luis shares his topic and favorite page with his classmates & parents

Below, Adriana writes about what she learned in Writer's Workshop.

"I can do sequence in my house and what I saw in my house in writing and do when it happened and write write write and each day Mrs. Montoy-Wilson tells us a mini lesson"

"First she tells us to do make a plan, then sketch and label, then draft, then revise, then edit. when we check our work. Then we publish and we also do first, next, then, finally."

"We use our sound spelling strip and we say it s-l-o-w-l-y and we use our word wall if we are stuck on a word in writing every day."

We were SO pleased to have so many parents come and celebrate our students' hard work! The Stanford Trees each presented their topic and favorite page before they headed off to read their piece to their parents. We all marveled in the Stanford Trees' enthusiasm, growth, and fantastic work! Here are some great photos from the event.