Work Expectations (Beckham) - Week of 1/26/09
Writer’s Journal - 4 pages
Literacy Journal - 3 pages
With the Stanford testing behind us, we will use this week to re-focus on workshop basics and continue working towards our “touchstone text” projects.
Work Expectations (Beckham) - Week of 1/19/09
Writer’s Journal - 2 pages
Literacy Journal - 2 pages
This week the students will spend a great deal of time in Stanford testing. When in class they will be continuing work on their “Touchstone Text” unit project and making sure their reading logs are up-to-date.
Work Expectations (Beckham) - Week of 1/12/09
Writer’s Journal - 5 pages
Literacy Journal - 4 pages
This week we are exploring abook to re-read and create both a reading and writing project over. Students are encouraged to create their own paths of meaning while they explore these books they are already familiar with, using this re-reading as an opportunity to explore the craft of authors and also examine themselves as readers to discover both what they like in their favorite books, but also why they like it.
- All work regarding the reading project should be done in the literacy journal.
- All work regarding the writing project should be done in the writer’s journal.
To see thousands of examples of fan fiction, click here. (Not all of those examples are good examples, of course.)
WRITING PROJECT OPTIONS (CHOOSE ONE)
a) “Fan Fiction”
This is for students who wish to create a new story using an author’s pre-existing characters and “world”.
- Work will be judged according to how well the student writer imitates the professional writer with regard to plot, tone, sentence structure, and characterization.
b) “Breaking New Ground”
This is for students who wish to explore new characters and worlds using the author’s writing characteristics.
- Work will be judged according to how well the student writer imitates the professional writer with regard to characterization, theme, style, and writing habits.
READING PROJECT OPTIONS (CHOOSE ONE)
a) “Author Profile”
This is for students who have read multiple books by the same author.
- In an author profile essay, the student will discuss the key author-craft elements of all of the books that the author has written, both the elements that are similar between texts and the elements that differ.
b) “Single Book Analysis”
This is for students who have read only one of the author’s books.
- In the single book analysis, the student will go deeper into the one book and use more detail and show more specific examples when explaining the author’s style of writing; focusing heavily on what the author intends to do and how the author does it.
c) “Compare/Contrast”
This is for students who have read multiple books of the same type but by different authors.
- In the compare/contrast essay, the student will focus on how different professional writers handle similar plots and characters. Students should take note of how the authors focus on different themes and offer different tones and perspectives.
To start out the second semester of the 2008-2009 school year, the work in reading workshop will focus on going back over favorite books, stories, and genres. We will be analyzing the common elements between things we like to read and looking deeply into those things we like to read to figure out exactly what it is that pleases us (or displeases us).
In the writing workshop we will be using the things we see in our favorite reading while we write, trying to imitate some of our favorite authors and discover our own writing voices in the process.
Work Expectations (Beckham):
Week of 1/5: 3 pages written in writer’s journal - 3 pages written in reader’s journal
Journal Strategies for this week:
- Listing favorites (literacy)
- Finding similarities between favorite –with examples– (literacy)
- Things I dislike about my favorites –with examples– (literacy)
- Imitating the author’s sentence structure (writer’s)
- Imitating the author’s pace (writer’s)
- Imitating the author’s plot/characters (writer’s)