Entry 3: Enhancing Previous Instruction

At my current job, I teach 9th grade Humanities and I am certified for grades 7-12. Looking through the overview that Tompkins provides on page 69 on, "The Writer's Craft," for grades 6-8, I think two of the most useful crafts that I would have used and will use in future classes would be based on organization, word choice. Looking first at organization at the 9th grade level, many of the students that I have now struggle to organize their thoughts in a cohesive manner when writing lengthy assignments such as paragraph responses and/or essays. One great minilesson described on page 71 is the, "Building Paragraphs" lesson. By including this lesson where students have to put the events of an essay in order, they are actively involved in making decisions for organizational purposes and are able to talk through it when necessary. In this same minilesson, it is also possible to include transition words and point out transitions throughout the "Building Paragraphs" activity and what keywords led those students to put the paragraph in the order that they chose. Not only could this activity be used for the upper levels that I teach, but this could definitely be used at the younger levels as well. 

Secondly, focusing on word choice would be another great piece of the writer's craft to incorporate in order to build our student's writing instruction. From Tompkins on page 72, he mentions an activity called, "Inserting Vivid Verbs" which I think would be useful at any grade level. Giving students a paragraph with a word that is repeated heavily throughout and having them come up with new and vivid vocab would be a great lesson to incorporate so students are able to see how much more enriching a text can be with specific vocabulary. Looking at Richard and Hawes' article, one of the specific minilesson that would coincide well with the word choice craft and the organization craft would be pinpointing specific transition words in a given passage. Not only does this help to develop a student's word choice by coming up with words they might not see in everyday life, but it helps them to organize their thoughts in an organized fashion. 

While these minilessons are useful as stand alone lessons, using mentor texts can boost our student's connectivity and attention towards these useful crafts. Not only are stories engaging to young and older students, but they allow students to connect to the characters in the texts when they may be experiencing difficulty with academics. These texts allow students to put their own learning needs into perspective with a character from a story who may be struggling with the same issues. These mentor texts can serve as a gateway to have an open and honest conversation with students who may not feel comfortable advocating for themselves when they face struggles with writing.