Language

To Sum Up...

This week we will be continuing our descriptive writing and will add writing summaries to our repertoire. I believe the students are ready to add themes or big ideas to their summaries, so we worked on how to do that today. I will post exemplars in the near future!

Fiction means fake, right?

In doing reading records with the students, I discovered there were some misconceptions about fictions vs non-fiction. Many students assumed that fiction had to unrealistic or fantastic. We have since begun writing very short -three or five sentence- fictional narratives that have a beginning, middle and end, and sometimes even a problem and solution, and are even Seed stories!

To simplify things I have told the students that fiction is created by an author mostly to entertain and non-fiction is created mostly to inform.

We will continue writing short seed narratives as well as look at other characteristics of fiction. The students will also be learning how to succinctly summarize that which they've read as well.

 Watermelon or Seed???

We have begun a few activities in Language class of which I wanted to make you aware. I am big proponent of mental health being of utmost importance to learning. To that end, we will be doing a lot of journaling this year as there is strong evidence that keeping a journal has positive effects on metal health. I have been reading excerpts of a journal of sorts, "The Book of Awesome" by Neil Pasricha.

The students have begun writing their own awesome things in a journal to help with positivity and gratitude. I used these entries as a segue to introduce a super helpful writing strategy, Seed v. Watermelon Stories.

Seed or Watermelon

Watermelon stories are broad, and lack focus because the event takes place over a long period of time. Seed stories can be focused and detailed due to their being limited to a short time period. While this may sound counter-intuitive let me explain:

An example of a watermelon topic might be My Summer Vacation. While this may have a lot to write about, young writers will have a hard time providing an interesting, detailed description of such a broad topic. Instead, focusing on a short moment of time from the summer, for instance a roller coaster ride, allows less-experienced writers to describe sights, sounds, thoughts, and emotions with great detail. e.g. they could describe the clicking of the coaster as it heads up the hill, their feelings of anticipation, the wind in their face etc.

I have been challenging the students to write about events that take place in less than five seconds, like tripping on something, or jumping from or over something. Their description must start right before the event and only take place in the short period of time it would take the event to occur. That does not limit how much detail they add. For instance, have a look at a Shared Writing Activity we are working on in class.

Malcolm knew he had the perfect picture. As he tapped the shutter release on his brand new iPhone 14, pride swelled in his heart; he would definitely win that photo contest for his Grade 12 Yearbook Club. The rest of his class had gone to get water. Their thirst from the long hike depleted any remaining liquid in their mouths, causing them to feel drier than the desert they gazed down upon. He, too, felt the effects of the 100 degree weather and three hour trek, as his hands had become slippery with sweat. 
            As his arm swang down to return the phone to his pocket, the perspiration caused his prized possession to fly out of his control. Being the star wide-receiver of his local football team, his instincts immediately kicked in, and he was confident he would be able to catch the phone before it tumbled to its destruction. This might have been true, except the sweat was the exact opposite of the gloves he wore during football games. He reached out to catch the iPhone and ended up juggling it five or six times before it fell onto a ledge of the canyon.

 Despite only having described about three seconds of action we have already written almost 200 words, and we aren't even finished yet! That is the power of focusing on a seed story instead of a watermelon topic!