0090810+ Meghan's+GT+class+notes

8/8/10 Observing Meghan: Board notes: Please bring your interactive notebook and a pencil with you to the rug. Excellent job yesterday of being on the rug, with materials, and silent when I sat down! Let’s see if we can do it again this week! Attendance question: Who do you respect the most? (Completed in 1 minute) Read aloud: // My Entire Football Career // by David Baur (editor of Sports Illustrated) Minilesson: How do authors come up with good writing ideas? Workshop: Best life events and Worst life events lists and choosing one to write about Debrief: Does anyone want to share their writing? How did you partner’s questions help guide your writing? Homework: Vocabulary

Meghan introduces // Guys Read // as read aloud. “I paid full price for this book because as I picked it up and read, couldn’t put it down. My question was “How do these guys come up with these ideas as writers?” That’s the question we’ll keep in front of us today. What behaviors do we want during this read aloud time?” (Students list: not crowding each other, not playing with things on our laps.) Read aloud Josh: I understand why that’s so funny. Everyone made fun of him at football, so he switched to baseball. Meghan: It reminds me of … I wonder how he developed this into such a great story. I’ve been thinking about that, so I decided to start writing my own lists. I organized them into my best life events and my worst events. I’ve done it before, but it’s changed over times because now I’m 35. Reads best life events and worst. Student: Were they tears of joy from your dad? M: Good idea! I’m going to write that down. If I should decide to write about my dad crying, what other questions do you have? S: How old were you? How old was he? What was he crying about? What caused him to cry? Why do you consider it a good moment instead of a bad one? Was it crying for joy or crying to something severe? Maybe he tought he was all tough and then you saw he wasn’t because he cried. What was the significance of his crying and why was that important to you? M: This is a writers’ group! I’ve been wondering how how that author came up with things to write about and you’ve already helped me! Your questions are giving me a direction to write about that I hadn’t even thought about. I’m going to write more about this event and answer some of your questions to share with you on Friday. S: comments M: that reminds me of another life event to add to the list: being electrocuted in Ireland (big buzz) M: Moves to doc camera. “I want you to notice my main question. Write this in your writing notebook “How do writers decide what to write about? Then write “Best Life Events” and number 1 to 10. Let’s try to come up with these right now. This is just like reading workshop time where we don’t talk but we’re thinking.” S: Are we just thinking or are we writing them down too? M: We’re writing them down. M: I’ll put on music. (gives 3 minutes and walks around to see what students are writing. Moves back to doc camera and addes another item to her own Best Life Event. Returns to seeing what students write.) M: (Catch and release) I’m noticing that some people are writing feverishly and others are thinking. Let’s hear what you have on your lists and then that may give others more ideas. Students share and ‘bump’ to another student. “so let’s continue to write for a couple more minutes.” Students immediately return to writing. M: After 3 minutes: “Will you please move to the Worse Life Events now and start writing your ideas there?” M continues to move about reading students’ lists. M: Looking around the room it looks like most people have at least a couple of events on both lists. Wrap up your writing. (Moves to doc camera to model) Now put a star like I did about the event that you know you’ll have a lot of memories to write about. “I have 3 stars next to items: getting married, adopting my daughter, seeing my dad cry.” M: Now circle the one you want to write about today. I’m going to circle the one about seeing my dad cry because you had good questions about that one. M: Next I’ll count to 20 and you’ll take pencil and notebook and find someone you don’t know well or haven’t worked with them this year. M: You know how you asked me these awesome questions about my dad. That’s what you’re going to do for each other. Turn to a new page on your notebook. Write your event at the top of the page (models on doc camera). S: I have two events that happened on the same day. Should I write them both? M: For now make that decision for yourselves and I’ll come around to you first. M: Ask each other questions. Write those down – you asked me 7! S: Should we write down the answers? M: Good question! Did I answer your questions? No, so you will just write down the question and absolutely don’t answer even though you’ll want to! Turn to partner grid. Gives the question “What was your first thought today?” Models on doc camera by writing today’s question down. “Take 2 minutes to share your thoughts. Then begin asking questions about the event.” Students immediately go to work. M: Guess what I just did! Blake’s event was about belly boarding and she asked what it was. Blake answered and I got all interested and started making comments! Was I supposed to do that? Nooo! So let’s be aware of that. Back to work. M: I’m wondering if people think they have enough questions? Then you can continue asking questions OR when you feel ready you can move away from your partner (so you’re not tempted to tell/talk) and begin writing. S: Is it a paragraph or longer? Etc. M: Wrap up what you’re talking or writing about and meet me on the rug. Our question was “How do these questions help you as a writer? Give about 30 seconds of think time.” S: They let you add more detail to your story because you have more to think about. S: Since you know the questions people have beforehand, you can answer those and they’ll understand it better. S:Taking the questions and really thinking about because I’ve left out things before and the questions helped me think about that. S: Helped me realize that you’re just talking on and on and people don’t understand. S: You can remember the kinds of questions they said and it will help me add details the next time I write. S: I asked if we could ask our own questions. Ray aasked me questions and it made me think of other questions. M: How will that help you? S: Helps me think of point of view, and what to write to help someone understand. S: It can help you get a clearer pictuer in your mind before you even write. M: Do you think when you’re at home tonight and think of a really good question that you could put it on a sticky and add to your notebook? If you don’t write it down, you’ll forget it and lose that idea. M: Write in planners. I’ll know you’re ready to go when you’re standing behind your chairs.
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