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Gina L - SHMS - Add to Anchor / Hook bin

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Gina L - SHMS - Add to Anchor / Hook bin

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*The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli
Great text to introduce creating a Heart Map.
*Out of Wonder by Kwame Alexander
collection of poems honoring famous poets in the style they write.
*La La La by Kate DiCamillo

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It would be great to have examples of excerpts that pair well together

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Alicia RMS                           Some of my classes are still struggling with the idea of "craft" and what it means.

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Alicia RMS                           Some of my classes are still struggling with the idea of "craft" and what it means.

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I was surprised that my students understood what "craft" was...they did better with it than I did.

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I was surprised that my students understood what "craft" was...they did better with it than I did.

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Students had a good understanding of what author's do and the choices they make when writing.

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Students had a good understanding of what author's do and the choices they make when writing.

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Roni Last FRMS: For reading, the students seem to be more aware of the writer "behind the scenes".  Is it appropriate to continue their independent choice of book/author instead of the featured authors?

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Roni Last FRMS: For reading, the students seem to be more aware of the writer "behind the scenes".  Is it appropriate to continue their independent choice of book/author instead of the featured authors?

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What are the assessments that we will use during this unit?

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I am wondering if all of the texts that are in the bins have been read by the literacy coaches?

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I am wondering if all of the texts that are in the bins have been read by the literacy coaches?

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Jess Aeilts

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I am excited to see what students bring to Reading since they will be studying different authors depending on who they have for their English classes.

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I would love to see more examples of what to do in reading for unit 2.

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With my EL students, we began building our understanding of the term "craft" by investigating other uses of the word craft they might know about: Minecraft, witchcraft, etc.

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We need to gather lists of "crafts" in chosen writer's collections. Got instance: Sharon Creech: repetition, alliteration, personal connections, simile metaphors,

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I am loving this unit so far but I'm just not sure how many authors I can get in. Right now we are studying Linda Sue Parks and focusing on a Long Walk to Water and this has been awesome! We are building background knowledge, vocabulary she uses and looking at her writing. They will try this on soon but it's so good it's taking me forever!

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I am wondering where I am going with this unit and what product students are going to create by the end.

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I am noticing that most of my students really love to write and want more time to edit/perfect their writing.

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In reading I am focusing on Sharon Creech because her levels are lower for the stories. We began with Love That Dog. We are focusing on author's craft through figurative language. In writing, I am focusing on Linda Sue Parks. We built background knowledge on Sudan and now are reading A Long Walk to Water.

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We have only started, but I love using A Long Walk to Water.  We talk about the idea of two stories being intertwined, the foreshadowing, and predicting

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I feel like we need to start including creative ways to use technology within our units of study. Even if we do not all have access to iPads, we should be able to use Chromebooks, Computer Labs etc. to engage our students more in ways that they will respond to.

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We in the beginning phases and are preparing to launch this unit. We used a quick write as a common formative assessment about writer's craft and the decisions a writer makes as a way to determine what our students know vs. need. We found that many students had a good foundation of narrative story structure, but struggled to describe writer's craft. This seemed like new terminology to them.

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I would love to know what each author is best known for. For example, is there one author that uses a lot of poetic devices in his/her writing, etc. It would be nice to have a list of the authors and what they do "best".

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I am wondering how/if other schools involve their Media Specialist/Librarians in these Units of Study?

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by Linda Sue Parks
-to show the kids what background knowledge is needed to be a good writer and how this author uses her background knowledge in her writing
-the conversations have been powerful

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Show Way by Jaqueline Woodson

Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech

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We love him. We would love for his books to be added to our bins. Woot-woot!

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I am wondering how to support special ed. learners, especially in reading when they are choosing a novel to read and analyze. Thinking of maybe doing guided groups??? What books in the bin would be a good fit for struggling readers?

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I am wondering if there is an efficient, easy way for the different 6th grade teams/buildings to share their informal assessments they are using in each unit. It would be helpful looking toward next year to come up with some consistency throughout the district.

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Peg Kehret has a biography called "Five Pages a Day" about her life as a writer which lends itself to all sorts of things the kids can try in their own writing.

Jason Reynolds is AMAZING!!!!! His thoughts on being a writer are exactly what we need. HIs voice is necessary.

I also think we need multiple copies for kids to read during independent reading of the authors that we're studying. They're all excited about reading the authors' books, but they can't get their hands on them.

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I think it would be nice to have more multiple copies of author books.  For example, when we shared about Peg Kehret every kid wanted to read one of her books, but we did not have that option.

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I think it would be nice to have more multiple copies of author books.  For example, when we shared about Peg Kehret every kid wanted to read one of her books, but we did not have that option.

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The same thing happened when we read Jason Reynolds books. All kids wanted to grab one of his books, but we only had a few copies.

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Fantastic book. Must keep. Can we get a class set?

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More multiple copies of all author study books so we can immerse ourselves in an author while studying them.

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More multiple copies of all author study books so we can immerse ourselves in an author while studying them.

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Peter H Reynolds and Jerry Pinkney really hooked my kids in

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Peter H Reynolds and Jerry Pinkney really hooked my kids in

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Our students made a lot of progress with what they learned about writers and their craft from the beginning of the unit to the end of the unit; however, they still do not readily use the language in their conversations about writing.

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I found a lesson plan on writer's craft with Lester Laminack and his picture book "Saturdays and Teacakes" In his video, he first shares what he believes is author's craft and asks students to listen for (audible craft) and look for (visual craft) examples in his picture book.
There are TONS of good examples and are easy for students to pull out. A GREAT place to begin!

YouTube: "Cracking Open the Author's Craft" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTkq3tTXGdo

Pdf Lesson: