think of a topic or issue that you know and care about, an issue around which you have strong...

THINK OF A TOPIC OR ISSUE THAT YOU KNOW AND CARE ABOUT, AN ISSUE AROUND WHICH YOU HAVE STRONG FEELINGS.

WRITE AN OPINION OR ARGUMENT TEXT IN WHICH YOU WILL WRITE YOUR OPINION OR CLAIM AND TELL REASONS WHY YOU FEEL THAT WAY.• Write an introduction

• State your opinion or claim• Give reasons and evidence• Organize your writing• Acknowledge counterclaims• Use transition words• Write a conclusion

OpinionASSESSMENT

Prompt

• Write an introduction• State your opinion or claim• Give reasons and evidence• Organize your writing• Acknowledge counterclaims• Use transition words• Write a conclusion

Session 1: Essay Structure Boot Camp

Writers use an essay frame to help structure their writing.

TEACHER SHARES AN EXAMPLE OF A FINISHED ESSAY

Writers, this is new work for you! Before we start learning to write more sophisticated essays we are going to look at an example of writing with the eyes of a soon-to-be essayists.

Today we are learning when writers write essays about their opinions, they structure their essays so that they communicate their thesis statement- their idea-and their reasons for their thesis statement with ‘boxes and bullets.’

Writers write essays about their opinion, or thesis statement. They state their opinions and support it with reasons.

Essay writers plan with a partner, write-in-the-air, then begin their draft with bullets.

I love ice cream.

SAMPLE ESSAY

• I love ice cream because you can add different toppings.

•

•

Writers you are speaking like essayists.

Let’s write an essay!(Thesis statement) because (reason 1), (reason 2), and most of all, because (reason 3)

• One reason that (reason 1). For example, (evidence a), (evidence b), and (evidence c).

•

•

Now It’s Your Turn

The first reason that I love ice cream is because you can add different toppings. There are at least sixteen kinds of candy to put on ice, maybe more. There’s also stuff like shredded coconut. In addition, there are a lot of sources to go on top too.

Session 2:

Writers get.

Today I want to teach you that writers collect ideas for stories not only by finding bits of life or entries that could grow into whole stores, but also by paying attention to the stories they

wished existed in the world.

How can I write a story for people like me, so we can see ourselves in books?

Let me show you how to create a story idea form a wish.

Characters in all stories have big longings.


When you make a wish into a story idea, you need to invent some details.

Remember, think about the characters and their traits, their struggles, their wants.

Tell your partner how you could turn this into a story idea.

So writers, we pretended we wished there were more stories. Now you’ll invent your own characters for those stories.

How to Find Ideas for Fiction

• Observe the world or reread entire. Mine your notebook for ideas.

• Ask, “What books do I wish existed in the world?” Let this question lead to invent a character with traits, struggles, actions.

Share

Listen as I practice storytelling by telling just the beginning of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Partner 1 try telling the same Billy Goats Gruff story to Partner 2. Tell the story like you are a storyteller and this is the most amazing story in the world. Go nice and slow, creating a storytelling aura.

Session 3: Developing Believable Characters

Fiction writers need to choose a seed idea (a story idea) and then begin to develop characters by creating their external and internal traits.

Today each of you will reread all your entries and select one see idea to develop into a publishable story.

A fiction writer lives with a story idea for a time.

Get to know your characters.

Developing My CharacterOutside(External Features) Inside (Internal Features)

Advice for Developing a Character

• Start with whatever you've decided matters to you about your character. Is he or she like you? Like someone you know?

• Put together a character so that all the parts fit together into a coherent person.

• Reread often, asking, “Do these different things make sense

within one person? Do they fit together on a believable way? Are these traits here for a reason?

• If a character seems too good to be true, make the character more complex and more human by asking , “what is the downside of this trait?


Let’s think about a character, with your partner try to add some things to the eternal side of the chart.

As you work, remember the things we’ve learned about developing characters.

So writers, from this day on, I hope when you write fiction you will focus on planning and developing your character before you jump in writing.

How to write a Fiction Story

• Develop a strong story idea, character(s), and setting.

Share

Writers call characters complex.

With your partner today, would you look at your characters and think whether they have bad as well as good sides, and whether you’ve really worked through the ups and downs of your characters’ personalities?

Session 4: Using Elaboration Prompts to Grow Ideas

Writers .

Fiction writers plan by plotting the arc of the story-and specially, by aiming to intensify the problem.

Plotting~ making the problem worse and worse!

Characters will get to the other side of the arc!

So writers,

Share

Remember I asked you to make several story arcs today but you will have to choose one you think will make the best possible story.

Can you, right now, read through your arcs and put a star on the one you think is strongest? The one you think will make the best story?

Share with your partner, if you are having trouble choosing one, ask your partner for advice.

Session 5: Mining Our Writing

Writers mine their entries and their lives for insights, developing these into more fully formed ideas and thesis statements.

Instead of coming up with new ideas all the time, writers often reread and mine their old writing, looking for jewels.

Don’t just look at one but rather at a bunch of entries and see the topics that resurface!

There are themes or ideas sometimes deep in our notebooks and lives!

Questions Writers Ask of Earlier Entires

• What is the important thing about this entry?• What does this teach about me? About Life?• Why do I remember this one time? How does it

connect to who I am or to important issues?• What other entries have I written that connect to

this one?• What does this make me realize?• What do I want readers to know about this?• What surprises me about this?

MY DADWhen the dance recital was

almost over, I glanced toward the doorway and saw my father striding across the gym floor toward me, his red plaid hunting cap perched on his head, his rubber galoshes flapping. Well I guess I am just happy he made it, I thought. Then, before Alexis could greet him with her usual hug, my dad thrust out his arms that were filled with a bouquet of flowers, wrapped in plastic. The kind you pick up at the grocery store.

Remember…..How to write a Fiction Story

• Develop a strong story idea, character(s), and setting

• Spend time planning how the plot will go, making sure there is an arc to the story, trying again and again until the plan feels just right.

Story Arc Example

Story Arc Example

Peter runs away with his chair before it gets repainted!

Peter wants his family to stay the way it is.

New baby sister arrives.

Peter doesn’t get attention for his building.

Peter’s parents paint his cradle. Peter doesn’t fit

in the chair.

Peter’s mom invites him for lunch.

Peter and his dad paint the chair pink together.

Off you go….

Draft your story arcs, and do so making the problem worse and worse, like writers always do!

Remember you will need to make a few….

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Session 6: Show, Don’t Tell

Writers often begin by putting the character into action or by laying out the character’s exact words and then unfolding the moment step by step.

Today I want to teach you that there comes a time when writers need to stop planning and write.

• Ideas will come as you are writing

• May want to use a separate page for each scene or a booklet

• A few words on each page to start

The difference between a summary and a scene

• Listen as I summarize ….

Now listen as I write-in-the-air scene……

Now It’s Your TurnWill each of you think of a moment from your story arc~ turn to your partner and take turns saying your little moment first like a summary.

Now It’s Your TurnOkay, now lets all try to write-in-the-air and turn the summary into a little scene.

Tell the story idea as a story, not a summary.

Remember, writers show their characters by putting them into action.

So writers, your job today is transfer your story arc onto a story booklet, containing a Small Moment story.




• Draft the story scene by scene, only using summary when needed.

Share

Let’s try acting out a couple of your scenes, to see how they look and sound, to see how that helps us revise them!

Tonight for homework~ revisit your favorite books, look for inspiration…

Session 7: Feeling and Drafting the Heart of Your Story

Writers create their best drafts when they experience the world through their characters' skin, letting the story unfold as it happens to them.

Today I want to teach you, before writers actually get going on a draft,

they think a lot about ways tomake a draft into a really

good story.

A good story let’s us loose ourselves, becoming the character.

Readers can more easily walk in the shoes of a character if the writer has done it first.

Listen as I reread the latest par of our story, by pretending to be the main character.

Now It’s Your TurnRight now, pretend you are the main character. Picture her, what does she do?

• Turn and tell your partner the next bit of the story.

• Now switch and have your partner add to the story.

So writers, I want to remind you that writing is a lot like drama. Once we’ve written our scenes, we need to reread it and become the main character.

We need to stand in the character's shoes, to see through her eyes.

Off you go…..

Session 8: Studying Published Texts to Write Leads.

Writers have many strategies for writing effective leads.

Today I want to teach you that just when writers are most fired up to write, they

force themselves to pause.

They pause, rewind, listen to what they’ve written, and revisit it.

Writers revise the lead because by doing so, they revise the entire story.

Writing Leads

A lead leads the readers into the text.

To write leads, that draw readers into a story, it helps to study the leads published authors have written.

Now It’s Your TurnReread with me now, and think, “What has Brinckloe done that we can learn from?”

On a summer eveningI looked up from dinner,

Through the open window to the backyard.It was growing dark.

My treehouse was a black shape in the treeAnd I wouldn’t go up their now.

But something flickered there, a moment-I looked, and it was gone.

It flickered again, over near the fence.Fireflies!

“Don’t let your dinner get cold,” said Momma.I forked the meat and corn and potatoes into my

mouth.“Please may I go out? The fireflies-”Momma smiled and Daddy nodded.

“Go ahead,” they said. (1985)

Remember

• Sometimes stories begin not with a big action but with a small action, and this can be an action in the setting, as when the firefly flickers on and off.

• Some stories begin by creating a mood and a place, and only afterward does the sequence of actions begin.

• Sometimes the time and the place are revealed slowly, bit by bit, as the character sees or moves into the setting.

So writers, remember: How to write a Fiction Story




• Study other authors for ways to make the story better.

Each of you needs to decide what you need to do. You're the boss of your own story!

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Writers, by now many of you have written several leads, several different scenes. I want to remind you that each of your leads will get you started telling a different story.

Write-in-the-air to help your partner imagine how that particular lead will set up your story. After that, share a second lead, and again see where it leads. Use this as a way to figure out which lead sets you up for the story you want to tell.

Session 9: Orienting Readers with Setting

Writers “stay in scene,” making sure the action and dialogue are grounded in the setting.

Today I want to teach you that you need to be sure that you ‘turn on the lights’ in your

stories, to show the place and time.

Listen to what happened to me once….

Sometimes writers get caught up in dialogue and forget everything else. Look at this example:

I didn’t know what to do. I looked at her. “Hey, are you mad at me?” I asked. “No. Are you mad at me?” she asked. I took a deep breath. “No. I don’t this so,” I said. “great, then let’s race,” she said.

To make sure the light are on for your readers, you need to always include two things: action and setting. Watch how the draft became much clearer when he added action and setting.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked as we walked down the sidewalk together.“No. Are you mad at me?” Zoe responded.A car whizzed passed us , kicking up water for the rain filled gutters as it went. I thought about what Zoe was asking, and shifted the umbrella so that it protected her as well as me. With my other hand, I tugged on my backpack straps. My bag was heavy from all the homework out teacher had given us.“No. I ‘m not mad,” I said. She smiled at me from beneath her yellow rain hood. “Good. Then let’s race!” She tool off ahead of me, splashing through every puddle on the sidewalk. The rain streamed down on her. I pulled in my umbrella and took off after her. I caught up with her, they loped easily in her wake.

So let’s try it!

Listen I added some more to our class story.

Let’s ask ourselves, ‘Will this make sense to my readers?” Is it clear?’

Now, talk with your partner, don’t simply comment on how you’d go about rewriting this toad setting and actions. Write the new text in the air.

This is what writers do. Our revisions start out as corrections, and they end up as

creations.

So writers, today you’ll continue to draft and revise your stories, shifting between the two processes. And when you revise you’ll reread for all the goals that have become important to you. Don’t leave your readers in the dark!

Off you go….

Share

Right now, would you find a place in your draft that you have recently written.

Now would you get together with someone who is not your partner, and read you section aloud.

When you are listening, show with your thumb up when you can really picture what’s going on.

Today you learned that writers help readers by describing what things look like in the place where the story is happening.

Session 10: Writing Powerful Endings

Writers of fiction do their best to craft endings that their stories deserve.

Writers, before long some of you will write your way toward the ending to your first draft.

~rehearsing possible endings

~ give closure that is important

~ take time with endings





• Study other authors for ways to make the story better.

• Make sure there is trouble in the story, and write an ending that resolves that trouble.

Writers make sure endings are of good quality.

• Can the reader see evidence of the main character's evolution?

• Does my ending make sense or come out of nowhere?

• Are the loose ends tied up? Have I answered the reader’s key questions?

• Have I revealed everything I need to for the story's purposes?

So writers, let’s work together.

Imagine possible endings to our class story.

So writers,

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Session 11: Bringing Forth the Story Arc

Writers use their knowledge of story structure to help them revise their work.

So writers,

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Session 12: Ending StoriesWriters don’t just end their stories, we resolve our problems, we change our feelings, we learn a lesson. We connect back to what is most important in the story.

So writers,

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Session 13: Editing-The Power of Commas

Writer’s know that punctuation marks have hidden power.

So writers,

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