YOU ARE INVITED!!

You are invited to attend a workshop with Linda Hoyt, author of Revisit, Reflect, Retell.  She will be working with the BSU Writing Fellows this summer and this afternoon will be open to all teachers.  Her focus is perfect in light of the work we have been doing with the Common Core Standards, nonfiction, and the Strategies that Work book.  I would love if you could be there!

2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Time: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Business Bldg. Room 101
Room setup: Theatre style

Raising the Bar with Nonfiction Writing: Exploring Content, Form, and Craft
Nonfiction is an amazing genre filled with diverse text types,
language structures, and visual features that are completely different
from those of fiction. But, it doesn’t have to be boring! Nonfiction
writing can and should be filled with interesting sentence structures,
jaw-dropping descriptors, and artistic punctuation. With the help of
well-crafted mentor texts and explicit teacher modeling, the
nonfiction writing of your students can sparkle with rich language and
imagery while honoring the text structures and features that are
essential to informational texts. With this in mind, nonfiction
writers need to experience writing for many purposes and in many
formats—experiencing cross-curricular writing opportunities that boost
content retention and the development of academic vocabulary. When
explicit teacher modeling and extensive application of nonfiction
writing are a natural part of every day, nonfiction writers learn to
approach informational writing experiences with an eye toward content,
form, and craft.

A Fun Idea for Biographies

Check out this link!  This interactive program is an interesting way to have kids respond to a biography.   They fill in the different sides of the cubes and can print the project to actually turn it into a cube.  The process makes them get to the essence of the information and would be an excellent first step in writing a summary.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/bio_cube/

Miss Young Revisits, Reflects and Retells

As part of the Boise State Writing project Mrs. Maxwell and I were asked to read Revisit, Reflect, Retell, by Linda Hoyt (Along with many other books before June!).  This is a new addition of a book I used to use in my own second and third grade classrooms so it truly is a revisit for me.  As I'm reading I'm finding all kinds of connections to Strategies That Work, which all of you have been using in the advanced reading interventions.  So I've decided to use the blog as my place of reflection.  The page is just beginning to take shape, but I realize that I'm going to be retelling myself (any of you who bother to read it) what kinds of things I believe in, what kids should be doing.  So far there have been strong reminders and connections that reinforce the path we've been on with our learning targets work.

Thanks for tuning in.  Check out the Revisits, Reflects, Retells page to the left.

Angie