Unit 6 Writing About Research April/May

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1 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 1 Welome to the Unit Unit 6 Writing About Researh April/May Think of this unit as the sequel to The Art of Information Writing. There, your kids hose topis of personal expertise and wrote hapter books where different hapters were organized in different ways, some as ause and effet, some as ompare and ontrast, some hronologial. For instane, if a hild was writing about soer, she might have written one hapter omparing and ontrasting indoor soer and outdoor soer, another hapter explaining the auses and effets of passing the ball different ways, and a third hapter set up hronologially that detailed the steps in the game. Your students learned various ways to strengthen their information writing, inluding how to elaborate on their ideas, how to add domain-speifi voabulary, and how to inorporate on-therun researh into their writing. First and foremost, then, you ll want to think about this unit as supporting transferene. You ll support your students in taking everything they learned in The Art of Information Writing and applying it to new projets that they ll write about the different animals they are studying. To do this, you ll alternate between referening earlier teahing by revisiting partiularly powerful minilessons from The Art of Information Writing and weaving in some new teahing to extend your students work. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 1 of 21 This unit is meant to go hand-in-hand with the Researh Clubs: Elephants, Penguins, and Frogs, Oh My! reading unit. As you know, in that unit students work in lubs and study first one animal then another animal. Aross this writing unit, then, students will ollaborate to write lub books about eah animal they researh, and then they ll write a lub book that aptures the ideas they grow in Bend III of that reading unit. We reommend you launh the two units at the same time. See Insights Gleaned From Other Teahers Who Have Taught This Unit for more suggestions about how this paing ould go. The bends are strategially paed so that students have a bit of ontent knowledge about an animal before they begin drafting their hapters. In addition to supporting transferene, this is also a unit that supports students in deepening their information writing skills in a few ritial areas, namely: struture, elaboration, organization, and raft. These goals are mirrored in the Researh Clubs: Elephants, Penguins, and Frogs, Oh My! unit, where students are taught to identify different text strutures and use those strutures to take notes, to elaborate on their ideas as they teah others, to synthesize information together as they notetake and teah, and to arefully onsider the hoies that the author made. Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

2 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 2 Overview Essential Question: How an I raise the level of my researh-based information writing, in partiular, by working on struture and development? Bend I: Transferring Previous Learning on Information Writing to Write Researh- Based All-About Books How an I transfer over everything I ve learned so far about information writing to this new book? Bend II: Writing All-About Books with An Emphasis on Struture How an I lift the level of my information writing, so that my writing inludes strong elaboration and a variety of text strutures? Bend III: Writing Books that Advane Big Ideas How an I use everything I know to help me write informational texts that advane big ideas? A Summary of the Bends in the Road In Bend I of the unit, you ll support students in transferring what they learned in The Art of Information Writing over to write new all-about books on the animal they re researhing as part of Bend I in Researh Clubs: Elephants, Penguins, and Frogs, Oh My! Students will work in their researh lubs to reate a lub book. They ll begin by writing to grow ideas. Then, you ll support them as they transfer what they know about reating powerful tables of ontents, teahing others, and drafting hapters using their knowledge of elaboration. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 2 of 21 In Bend II of the unit, eah researh lub will write another all-about book, this time about the seond animal they are studying. These books will have a partiular emphasis on text struture. You ll teah students ways to ollaboratively develop their writing, supporting their ross-text(s) synthesis skills. Then in Bend III, you ll extend the work, teahing students how to use what they know about information writing to write books that advane the big ideas the lub has been exploring. Clubs will write books exploring big ideas: animal adaptations, differenes in animal habitats, and more! You ll teah them to lift the level of their writing by using peer onferring and self-assessment. Supporting Skill Progressions Writing is given a preeminent plae as one of the basis reading, ritin, and rithmiti beause it is a skill that enables learning aross every disipline. It s important, then, that writing is linked to the soial studies, siene, math, and reading urriulums. This unit has been designed to allow teahers to atually bring disipline-based writing into the writing workshop. Students are asked to write about a ontent area they ve been studying at another time of the day (during reading time). During writing, teahers help with the speifi writing hallenges that this disipline-based work Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

3 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 3 poses (while also helping students grasp the subjet matter). This unit, then, is an extension of the information writing unit, one that makes more spae for researh and text itation skills that are important in the Common Core State Standards. As you lead this unit, remember that the Common Core State Standards expetations for third grade (and far more so for fourth grade) in information writing ask for a fous on struture and elaboration. You will reall that aording to the CCSS, third-grade information writers should group related information (W.3.2), an expetation that seems to us to require organizational strutures suh as setions within a piee. It is worth noting that next year, in fourth grade, your writers will also be required to group related information within their opinion writing. Beause they are not expeted to group related information in opinion writing this year but are expeted to in information writing, it s lear that the CCSS believe that learning this skill first in information writing will help writers transfer the work more easily. Thus, your students must leave this year understanding how and being able to do this work so that they are ready to transfer this skill to a new genre next year. Additionally, the CCSS expets third-grade writers to move toward a ohesive struture through the use of linking words and phrases as a way to onnet information within setions (e.g., also, another, and, more, but), to introdue their topis, and to provide a sense of onlusion at the end. A seond important quality of informational writing, as you will reall, is elaboration. The CCSS state that third-grade writers should be able to develop topis with fats, definitions, and details, as well as illustrations when these are appropriate. We believe that it is important for informational writers to draw on a wealth of speifi information. In addition to what is highlighted by the CCSS, this ould inlude answers to questions, statistis, definitions, fats, terms, desriptions, observations, patterns, sequenes, true anedotes, and so on. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 3 of 21 None of this will be new to students who have already experiened the unit The Art of Information Writing by Luy Calkins and Colleen Cruz, in Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann, 2013). This unit, then, an provide students with the opportunity for the additional pratie they need to master the skills expeted of them, and it an also give you an opportunity to teah toward independene. You will also want to use this as an assessment-based unit, one that allows you to shore up any skills that have yet to be developed. Assessment Like your earlier units, you ll want to begin with an on-demand assessment that reveals what your students know about information writing. Your students have been engaged in information reading and writing units sine your last on-demand assessment, and it s likely their skills have improved. We reommend you take one lass-period and ondut another on-demand information writing assessment, using the same prompt and onditions as before so that your students writing piees will be omparable. On the day before your assessment, you ll want to let students know you ll be onduting the assessment tomorrow so they an prepare. You ould say: Think of a topi that you ve studied or that you know a lot about. Tomorrow, you will have forty-five minutes to write an informational (or all-about) text that teahes others interesting and important information and ideas about that topi. If you want to find and use information from a book or Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

4 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 4 another outside soure to help you with this writing, you may bring that with you tomorrow. Please keep in mind that you ll only have forty-five minutes to omplete this. You will only have this one period, so you ll need to plan, draft, revise, and edit in one sitting. Write in a way that shows all that you know about information writing. Then, you ll want to repeat the prompt again right before the assessment. When students atually do the assessment, you may want to add a few bullets as reminders: In your writing, make sure you: Write an introdution Elaborate with a variety of information Organize your writing Use transition words Write a onlusion Use the information writing learning progression to study your students writing. Look for areas where your students are not yet meeting third-grade standards, as those will be areas you ll want to partiularly fous on as the unit progresses. Getting Ready If you ve already gathered the materials you need for the Researh Clubs: Elephants, Penguins, and Frogs, Oh My! unit, you ll find you re well set up for this unit. In Bend I of that unit, students researh one animal. In Bend II, they researh a seond animal. In Bend III, students ompare and ontrast aross the two animals they ve researhed as they write to grow ideas about those animals. This means that you ll need to reate bins of texts on various animals and fill those texts with books your kids an read. Students will draw on these bins from time to time aross this writing unit, as well. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 4 of 21 This unit will also require a few additional materials. In partiular, you ll need: Short Videos: In Session 2, we reommend that you share some short video lips with students. You ll want to hoose video lips that feature the animals eah lub is researhing. We reommend NationalGeographi.om or the BBC s wildlife nature video lip olletion as plaes to look for videos. Eah lub will need a devie they an gather around to wath the videos. Mentor Texts: You ll want to selet a few partiularly strong mentor texts for students to study to learn more about the harateristis of powerful information writing. Ideally, these are mentor texts that utilize different text strutures in different setions (ex. one setion is strutured as a ompare/ontrast and another setion is strutured hronologially). We reommend books by Bobbie Kalman, as they are learly strutured texts that also inlude varied elaboration strategies. We partiularly like The Life Cyle of an Emperor Penguin by Bobbie Kalman. It s used as a read aloud text in the Researh Clubs reading unit, so your students will already be familiar with it. It inludes a variety of text strutures and features, and it inludes a variety of elaboration strategies. Teaher Topis: You ll want to selet the topis you model with. In Bend I, we reommend you model writing about penguins, and in Bend II, we reommend you model writing about frogs. These topis mirror the topis you model with in the Researh Clubs unit. In Bend III, we reommend you model writing about Animal Babies and Parents, as this is the big topi you re investigating with the lass aross the bend in the reading unit. Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

5 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 5 Maximizing Reading-Writing Connetions You ll want to think arefully about how to align the Writing About Researh unit and the Researh Clubs unit. Below, you ll see one suggested paing guide for the two units. In both the units, you ll want to move quikly through eah bend, as it s likely you won t have enough books and materials to keep kids engaged in researh about any one animal for longer than six days. Researh Clubs Bend I: Launh the units simultaneously. Teah reading prior to writing for Session 1, and make sure your read aloud omes prior to the launh of Writing about Researh. Have students begin researhing their first animal. This bend is meant to be 6 days long, and it should end slightly before Bend I of Writing about Researh. Bend II: Launh Bend II a day before launhing Bend II in writing. This gives students a bit of time to researh their seond animal as a lub before they start writing about the animal. This bend is meant to be 6 days long. Writing About Researh Bend I: Launh Bend I right after launhing the Researh Clubs unit. Have students begin writing a lub book about their first animal. This bend is meant to be 7 days long, so it should extend slightly past the end of Bend I of Researh Clubs. This will give students a day to start investigating their seond animal in reading workshop before they start writing about it. Bend II: Launh Bend II in writing after students have had one or two days to read about their seond animal. Have students begin writing a lub book about their seond animal. This bend is meant to be 7 days long, so expet it to extend a few days into Bend III of Researh Clubs. This is intentional. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 5 of 21 Bend III: Launh Bend III a few days before launhing Bend III in writing. This gives students a few days to grow ideas aross their two animals and begin researhing those ideas before they begin to write about their ideas. This bend is meant to be 7 days long. Bend III: Launh Bend III in writing after students have had two or three days to synthesize information and ompare and ontrast aross their two animals in reading workshop. Have students begin writing a lub book about big ideas they are growing, and plae a speial emphasis on text struture, partiularly omparing and ontrasting. This bend is meant to be 7 days long. During this unit, we reommend that you shedule reading workshop and read aloud before writing workshop eah day. That way, kids will ome to writing filled up with all kinds of new ideas they an write about. Some teahers noted that when students had their animal books out during writing workshop, they often opied diretly from the book, reating a new text that was almost idential to the one they were researhing from. We ve taken a few expliit steps to address that. For starters, the first two sessions of this unit involve students writing from alternative texts: photographs and videos. Students an learn ontent from these texts, but it s almost impossible to dupliate them diretly in their writing. Seond, we suggest students regularly talk in lubs about their ideas or teah eah other. By talking about what they ve learned, students will ome to represent their learning in new Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

6 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 6 ways. And, we suggest you ask students to mostly refer to their notes during writing workshop, rather than their books. During reading workshop, you ve taught students to jot notes in their own words and to synthesize the information they re learning from aross texts. By writing off of their own notes, kids are more likely to reate their own original books that represent the ways they are proessing the information. Your researh lubs will be spending quite a bit of time together this month. They ll be researhing animals together eah day in reading and then working ollaboratively to draft lub books during writing workshop. Four students tend to be an ideal group size. You ll want to think strategially about how to group your students together. This might be a great time for heterogeneous lubs, so that you an group students aross a small range of reading and writing levels who all work well together. Keep lub dynamis high by emphasizing how professional writers always have a team of people working with them when they publish their books. It s easy for volume to slip away during this unit. You might see kids spending the majority of their time reading and jotting tiny notes or kids only drafting one hapter. To avoid this, keep a speial eye on volume. As often as you an, emphasize that students should be drafting multiple hapters, trying out a draft of a hapter three different ways, or olleting more than a page in their notebook during a single writing workshop period. If you are not teahing this unit onurrently with Researh Clubs, you ll want to think about ontent your students know well that you ould substitute in. If you want students to write about ountries, for example, you ould look to previous years urriular alendars about information writing in the ontent areas to get ideas for how to students an write about that ontent. You ould also look to Bend IV in The Art of Information Writing: Transferring Learning from Long Projets to Short Ones. Bend I: Transferring Previous Learning on Information Writing to Write Researh-Based All-About Books Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 6 of 21 You ll want to launh this unit by reminding students of all the work they ve done with information writing earlier in the year. You might even pull out students information writing books from The Art of Information Writing and, for the onnetion of your lesson, invite students to study their earlier writing thinking, What do I already know how to do as an information writer? What do I do partiularly well? Students ould quikly name out all the things they know how to do: reate a table of ontents, write different hapters, say more about eah of their hapters, inlude text features, and so on. Then, you might introdue students to the new writing unit, explaining that they will be using everything they know about information writing to help them write really powerful lub books about the new animals they re researhing in reading workshop. By this point, students have only spent about 30 minutes researhing their new animal, so they won t be ready to dive in and start drafting their hapters. However, you will want to get them writing from day one in the unit. You might name your teahing point, saying, Today I want to teah you that information writers are really areful observers. One way they learn more about their topis is by taking something an objet, a photograph and studying it losely, trying to notie all the details. Then, they write long about what they notie, saying, I see. I notie This reminds me of I wonder Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

7 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 7 Today I want to teah you that information writers are really areful observers. One way they learn more about their topis is by taking something an objet, a photograph and studying it losely, trying to notie all the details. Then, they write long about what they notie, saying, I see. I notie This reminds me of I wonder You ll want to model for students how you do this work. To do this, open up one of your penguin books to any page, and show students how you selet a piture to study. Model for students how you observe the piture losely, pushing yourself to notie all the details. Then, show students how you write off of what you see. For instane, if you wrote about a photo with several penguins standing together, your writing might look something like this: I see three penguins standing together. It looks like the penguin on the right is the tallest, and the penguin on the left is a little bit shorter. Otherwise, the two tallest penguins look almost the same. They are both pointing their beaks up toward the sky. Their faes are mostly blak with a little bit of orange. I notie that their bellies are not totally white. I always thought penguins were white, but these look more yellowish, and they are definitely yellow on the top by their heads. I wonder why we talk about penguins being blak and white when they are more yellowish. I also see a muh smaller penguin. He looks so muh fuzzier than the big penguins, and he s almost all gray. I wonder when the baby penguins lose their gray fur and get their yellow/white and blak oats. I also wonder how old the baby is. He looks so little! After you ve modeled a bit of this work, you ll want to set students up to try it during the ative engagement. Open up a book on penguins, or whatever topi you re using to model, and projet another piture. Rally the students to use the prompts you mentioned in your teahing point to talk about the piture: I see I notie This reminds me of I wonder. Coah them as they write in the air about what they notie. Be sure that the link of your minilesson emphasizes volume. Students should study one photograph and write long off of it, filling a page or more with their observations. Then, they should study another photograph, and maybe a third if they have time. You ll want to see kids doing a lot of writing today. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 7 of 21 For the Share, you might teah students that in addition to writing long off of their observations, information writers an also make quik skethes and then add labels and aptions to those skethes. These skethes an help students hold onto the ontent that they are learning. You ould give all the students a hane to try out a sketh with labels and aptions as part of the share. It s likely your students will benefit from another day of writing to grow ideas. For a seond session, you ould teah students, Information writers write to grow their ideas. One way they do this is by studying videos about their topi with their minds on high, jotting notes about what they re learning, and then writing long off their notes. You might hoose to teah through guided pratie, oahing students as they try this work using a video on penguins. One video you might use for this work is this video from BBC One of penguin hiks trying to survive in a blizzard It s hard to jot notes from a video the first time you go through, so you might start by inviting students to wath the video one, enjoying it and taking it in. Then, the seond time you show the video, invite students to jot notes. You might say, This time through, wath with your mind on high, jotting notes about what you re learning. Use everything you know about taking notes to help you. After kids have jotted notes, invite them to turn and ompare their notes to their partners, adding information to their notes that they might have missed. Next, hannel students to write or talk long off of what they re learning. They ould Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

8 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 8 write long, taking 3 minutes to try and fill a page, or they ould try and talk about their ideas for 3 minutes to see how muh they an say. During the link of the lesson, you ll want to send students off with options of what to work on. You might explain to lubs that you downloaded a few informational videos on their topis or ued up a laptop for eah team to gather around. Rally them to wath eah video a few times, jotting notes as they go, and then to write long off of their observations. Remind them, also, of the work they did yesterday growing ideas by studying photographs. Kids should draw on both of those strategies as they head off to write. Be on the lookout for kids who are suked into the videos and photographs and not doing a lot of writing. Be ready to hannel them into their notebooks, so they are regularly writing long about their ideas. After two days of writing to grow ideas, you ll want to move students toward planning out how their lub books about their first animals will go. Look to Sessions 2 and 3 in The Art of Information Writing for ideas for how you ould help students plan out their table of ontents. If your students had diffiulty planning out tables of ontents for their information books during The Art of Information Writing, you might deide to reteah Session 2 from that unit, oahing students as they try out a few different ways their table of ontents ould go. If your students suessfully planned out different tables of ontents, we reommend you reteah Session 3, whih looks at how students an plan tables of ontents with different text strutures. Whihever session you selet, you ll want to spend about a day getting students to plan out their table of ontents for their book. Be sure that you re modeling how your book on penguins might go. You ould try out different tables of ontents for your topi. Version 1 Version 2 Version 3 Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 8 of 21 Kinds of Penguins Emperor penguins (probably the best known) King penguins Maaroni penguins Gentoo penguins... Parts of Penguins Beak (uses it to help ath food) Feathers (help it stay warm) Smooth Body (help it swim quikly) Flippers (no wings so an t fly but flippers help it to swim) Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om Ways Penguins Protet Themselves Their bodies are made to help them survive They an huddle with other penguins to keep warm They an swim fast in the water to help them esape predators Students are working in lubs to write their books, but you ll want to make sure that they spend a signifiant portion of eah writing workshop period writing, not talking about their work. While trying out different tables of ontents, for instane, you ll want to see eah student trying out a variety of tables of ontents independently. During the share of today s lesson, you might invite students to form into their lubs to study their different tables of ontents and ollaborate on a final version of a table of ontents. As they try this work, you might draw on the mid-workshop teahing point of Session 2, Considering Whether Your Book Has a Logial Struture. Remind students that as they are pieing together parts of different tables of ontents to form their perfet table of ontents they should be thinking, Do my hapters follow a logial sequene? Have students end by making deisions about what hapters they ll be in harge of writing and signing up for those hapters. Be

9 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 9 sure eah student has at least two hapters they are responsible for drafting. On day four of the unit, you ll want to support students as they prepare to draft. One way you an help students prepare to draft is by having them teah others as a way to determine what they know a lot about and to see what holes are oming up in their researh. One they determine what information is missing, they an do some quik researh, turning to their researh lub books to find any missing information. You ould draw on Session 1 in The Art of Information Writing as you plan for today s teahing. For your teahing point, you ould say, I want to remind you that information writers are teahers. When you write an information book, you are teahing a unit of study on your topi, and it helps to rehearse by atually teahing real students. Rehearsing an help you see what you know a lot about and what you need to researh to learn more about. Today I want to remind you that information writers are teahers. When you write an information book, you are teahing a unit of study on your topi, and it helps to rehearse by atually teahing real students. Rehearsing an help you see what you know a lot about and what you need to researh to learn more about. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 9 of 21 You ould lean losely on the struture of Session 1 during today s minilesson, first demonstrating for students how you hoose one of the hapters from the lass demonstration text s table of ontents, then plan out the different things you ould teah about that hapter, and then teah them aloud. For instane, you might say, So, one of my hapters is about the penguin s life yle. Let me plan out some of the things I ll teah in that hapter. (Count the things out aross your fingers). I ould teah about how the penguin starts as an egg. I ould teah about how the penguin beomes a hik. I ould teah about how it grows into a fledgling. Then I ould teah about how it beomes a mature penguin. Ok, now let me try out teahing this. I ould say, A penguin s life yle is really ompliated. A penguin starts as an egg that s laid by its mother. When the penguin is inside the egg it s alled a. a.. Hmmm I don t remember what it s alled. Let me jot that down find the name of a penguin when it s inside the egg. In a few minutes I an researh that to figure it out. Ok, let me keep going Spend two or three minutes showing students how you try teahing about penguins life yles and jot notes about what you still need to researh. Emphasize how you ll do some quik researh, turning to books to get answers to your questions Then, you ould oah students as they take another hapter from the lass demonstration text s table of ontents on penguins and pratie teahing it to their partner, on the lookout for the information they already know and information that s missing. Use your link to set up the logistis of the work. You ould suggest that students break into partnerships within their groups and take turns teahing their hapters to eah other, jotting notes about the researh they still need to do. One they ve taught all their hapters to eah other, hannel them bak into their books to researh. We suggest you use days five and six of the unit to get kids drafting the hapters they re responsible for, transferring all they know about writing informational hapters to help them. To start, you ould teah students to transfer everything they know about planning tables of ontents over to help them plan out and then draft eah hapter in their book. Use Session 5, Organization Matters in Texts Large and Small from The Art of Information Writing, as a guide for this session. You ould say to students, Today I want to remind you that everything you ve learned about organizing a table of ontents applies also to the work of organizing any hapter or any information text you write. Whenever you write an information text, start by making a miniature table of ontents even if it is just in your mind. The hart on Strong Information Writing on p. 39 in the unit will be a partiularly Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

10 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 10 important one to revisit with students. Today I want to remind you that everything you ve learned about organizing a table of ontents applies also to the work of organizing any hapter or any information text you write. Whenever you write an information text, start by making a miniature table of ontents even if it is just in your mind. In your minilesson, you ould model for students how you reate a quik plan for your hapter on A Penguin s Life Cyle. You ould generate an initial table of ontents for the hapter: A Penguin s Life Cyle: Egg Embryo Baby hik One-month-old hik Fledgling Mature Penguin Then, you ould show students how you use the Strong Information Writing hart to rethink your table of ontents for the hapter. You ould think aloud about how your table of ontents has a logial struture (beginning of life to end of life). You ould think aloud about whether you re repeating information. For instane, you ould say, Oh, I think the egg and the embryo should atually be part of the same hapter, beause the embryo is inside the egg. Let me ombine those. And, maybe I should put the baby hik and the one-month-old hik together into a part that s all about hiks. Your revised table of ontents for the hapter might look like this: Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 10 of 21 A Penguin s Life Cyle: Embryo Baby hik Fledgling Mature Penguin Next, you ould follow the ative engagement in Session 5, asking students to try this work with one of the hapters they re drafting today. Then, you ll want to send students off to begin drafting their hapters, drawing on all they know about information writing as they draft. Ask students to draft on loose leaf paper outside of their writing notebook, so they ll be able to ombine the hapters they are writing with the others in their researh group. Expet to see students drafting hapters that are at least a page long, perhaps even longer. During your mid-workshop teahing point, you ould remind students to use the notes they re taking during reading workshop to help them remember all the information they need as they are drafting. It s likely most students will need two days to draft the hapters in their books, so you ll want to plan at least one more session that supports students in drafting. One way to do this is to remind students that they an use elaboration strategies as they are drafting to help them develop their writing and teah their readers even more. For your teahing point, you might draw on Session 4, Laying the Briks of Information, from The Art of Information Writing. You ould say, Today, what I want you to notie is that the unit we re in is alled Information Writing for a reason. It is made up entirely of information! The book you will be making is a lot like a brik wall, only the briks are Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

11 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 11 piees of information. You write information books by taking those hunks of information, your briks, and then you lay those piees of information alongside eah other. Today, what I want you to notie is that the unit we re in is alled Information Writing for a reason. It is made up entirely of information! The book you will be making is a lot like a brik wall, only the briks are piees of information. You write information books by taking those hunks of information, your briks, and then you lay those piees of information alongside eah other. Then, you ould set students up to study a brief part of your mentor text to notie the kinds of information that information writers tend to inlude. If you re using The Life Cyle of an Emperor Penguin by Bobbie Kalman, you might use p. 8 and 9, An emperor penguin s body. Set students up to listen to and study one setion of the text. Analyze the ontent of one paragraph in your teah. An emperor penguin s body The body of an emperor penguin is designed for life in the Southern Oean. An emperor penguin has powerful wings. It uses its wings as flippers while it swims. Its body is streamlined, or smoothly shaped, allowing the penguin to swim quikly through the water. An emperor penguin must swim quikly to find food and avoid predators. Predators are animals that hunt and eat other mammals. You might say, I m notiing a few different tehniques being used here. I see a bunh of voabulary words and definitions. It seems like one time Bobbie Kalman put the definition for the word right in the sentene, when she said, streamlined, or smoothly shaped, and another time she put it in its own sentene, when she said, Predators are animals that hunt and eat other animals. I m also seeing her inlude some desriptions, where she says that a penguin uses its wings as flippers while it swims. Let me hart these tehniques, so I an try them later in my own writing. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 11 of 21 Then set students up to analyze another setion of the text in the ative engagement. Chart the different tehniques your students notie. By the end of the inquiry, the list might inlude: quotations, statistis, anedotes, observations, desriptions, voabulary words and definitions, diagrams, pitures, lists, labels, different puntuation: olons, dashes, parentheses. If you already reated this hart as part of The Art of Information Writing, you ould instead pull out the earlier hart and referene it with students. As you send students off to write, remind them that this work an help them as they draft and as they revise. That is, as kids head off to write today, they should be drafting new hapters with these elaboration strategies in mind. They should also go bak and revise hapters they ve already drafted to ensure they ve inluded a variety of elaboration strategies. To wrap up the bend, we reommend you use day seven to support work with ross-text(s) synthesis and lub ollaboration. Up to this point, your students have mostly been working on their hapters independently, so today, we reommend you rally them to work together to add information into eah other s hapters preisely where it belongs. This builds off the ross-text(s) synthesis work your students are doing during Researh Clubs. While they are notetaking during Researh Clubs, your students are learning to think ritially about where the new information they are learning should fit into their notes. To transfer this work into writing, you ould say, Today I want to teah you that one way information writers strengthen their writing is by ollaborating by Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

12 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 12 others. They share hapters with one another and think, What do I know that I ould add to this information? And, where, preisely, should I add that new information in? For your minilesson, you might teah through guided pratie. Post one hapter from your information book, one about a topi your students are familiar with, and invite them to serve as your partners. Set them up to read your hapter thinking, What do I know that I ould add to this information? And, where, preisely, should I add that information in? You ould post the following hapter: Caring for the Fragile Egg Have you ever raked open an egg when you wanted to bake something? Eggs are pretty easy to break open, right? Imagine if you were a penguin and you had to keep an egg safe for a long time until it hathed. It s pretty triky work. Here s how taking are of an egg works. First, the mother penguin lays an egg. Then, she passes it to the father. One the father has it, the mother an go to the oean to get food. She needs food beause she used a lot of blubber trying to arry and lay the egg. Then, get students to turn and talk, thinking, What do I know that I ould add to this information? And where, preisely, should I add that information in? Students might suggest that you add in that penguins sit on the eggs for 65 days. They might suggest you talk more about how the eggs are passed bak and forth beause it s pretty triky work. Give students a pen. They ould revise your piee to add in, Passing the eggs bak and forth is really tough beause the egg is so easy to rak. If the egg gets too old, it ould rak open. Coah them as they think about where exatly the revisions should be added in. During the link of today s minilesson, you ll want to help students think through the logistis of this work. Kids ould break into partnerships, swith hapters, and add in information thoughtfully to their partner s hapters. Or, they ould sit in a irle within their lub, reading one hapter, adding to it, and then passing it on to the next student. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 12 of 21 During the share of today s session, you ould elebrate the growth students have made aross the unit. One way to do this is to invite students to study their work next to the Grade 3 Information Writing heklist to see what they are doing well in their hapters and to set goals for the upoming bend. Bend II: Writing All-About Books With An Emphasis on Struture In Bend II of the unit, you ll invite students to write another all-about book as a lub, this time about the animal they are studying in Bend II of the Researh Clubs: Elephants, Penguins, and Frogs, Oh My! unit. We suggest this bend launhes one or two days after Bend II begins in the Researh Clubs unit. If you re launhing the two bends at the same time, you might hoose to begin by revisiting the writing to grow ideas work that students did at the beginning of Bend I. To start the unit, you ll want to help students plan out their new all-about book with greater independene, transferring over all they know about planning out an entire book and planning out possible parts of their hapters. For the onnetion of your lesson, you might invite students to Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

13 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 13 bring bak the table of ontents on their first animal. Set them up to study that table of ontents thinking, How many of these hapters would be the same for our seond animal? Are there any we should revise? This is similar to the work students just did planning out the subtopis for their seond animal study as part of the Researh Clubs unit. Students notied that their seond animal had many of the same subtopis as their first animal. During the teahing portion of your minilesson, you ould model for students how you reate a table of ontents on your new topi, frogs, drawing on all you know about planning out an entire book and the ontents of individual hapters. In this way, your teahing in this minilesson will draw on Sessions 2, 3, and 5 in The Art of Information Writing. During Bend II in the Researh Clubs unit, your teahing fouses partiularly on text strutures, so you ll want to draw heavily on Session 3, modeling how you inlude hapters with a few different text strutures in your table of ontents. One table of ontents you model might look like this: All About Frogs: The Life Cyle of a Frog Frogs Bodies Frogs Habitats The Pros and Cons of Having a Frog as a Pet Comparing Frogs and Toads How an we help frogs in danger? (Problems and solutions) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 13 of 21 Quikly, you ll want to hannel students into trying this work in their lubs. Enourage lubs to use everything they know as they generate table of ontents. They ould try out a bunh of tables of ontents, ollaborate together to hoose the best one, and then begin mapping out how their individual hapters ould go, based on what they already know. If they have time, they ould even pratie teahing eah other to see what information they know and what information they re missing. They ould do some quik, on-the-run researh to fill in any gaps. By the share of the first session in this bend, you ll want to make sure eah lub has a solid table of ontents planned out with ideas about who will draft eah hapter. Again, we reommend that students eah take responsibility for a few of the hapters. Be sure there are several hapters for eah kid to draft. Elaboration is triky work, so it s likely you ll want to spend another day on this work right from the beginning of the bend. Session 6 from The Art of Information Writing, Studying Mentor Texts to Learn Elaboration Strategies will be a great guide as you plan this session. For your teahing point, you ould say, Writers, today I want to teah you that when informational writers draft and revise, they often onsider ways they an add more, or elaborate. Information writers an learn to elaborate by studying mentor texts, taking note of all the different kinds of information that writers use to teah readers about subtopis. Writers, today I want to teah you that when informational writers draft and revise, they often onsider ways they an add more, or elaborate. Information writers an learn to elaborate by studying mentor texts, taking note of all the different kinds of information that writers use to teah readers about subtopis. To start, you ould pull out the Kinds of Information Writing hart you reated with students in Bend I, and remind students of the different kinds of information that information writers tend to inlude. Then, you might explain to students how you read a bit of the book and found a passage Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

14 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 14 where the author elaborated not just by telling fats but by inluding a desription of what happened. For example, you ould pull out a paragraph of The emperors and the eggs from The Life Cyle of an Emperor Penguin by Bobbie Kalman. The emperors and the eggs Soon after a mother lays an egg, she passes it to the father penguin. To pass the egg, the mother gently rolls it from her feet onto the father s feet. Both penguins must be extremely areful while they pass the egg. If the egg is on the ie for longer than a few seonds, it will rak. If the egg raks, the embryo will die. You ould desribe the tehniques the writer used and then model how you use that same tehnique in your own writing. You ould write a bit of a hapter on a frog s habitat: Soon, the weather starts to grow old. Some frogs, like the Amerian toad, are great diggers. To hibernate, they dig with their feet deep into the mud. They have to be very areful to get beneath the frost line. If they hibernate above the frost line, they might freeze to death. After your demonstration, you ould oah students as they study another setion of the mentor text, notie the elaboration tehniques being used, and try their hand at using those tehniques to draft another one of your hapters on frogs. As students head off to draft today, you ll want to make sure they have aess to mentor texts. You might make opies of key pages from The Life Cyle of an Emperor Penguin, so students an referene those pages as they work. Look for pages that showase different kinds of information. Or, you ould make available various texts for students to study, perhaps laying out a dozen Bobbie Kalman books and inviting students to study those as they work. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 14 of 21 In the next session, you ll want to support students in weaving together fats and ideas in their writing. This will help ensure students are not just transferring over what they ve learned about their topi, but that they are also inluding their own unique ideas about their learning. To do this, referene Session 8 from The Art of Information Writing: Balaning Fats and Ideas from the Start. You ould keep your teahing point very similar to Session 8, saying, Today I want to remind you that when you write information books, you try to interest your reader. Readers love fasinating fats, and they love ideas, too. Writers make sure their writing ontains both fats and ideas. Today I want to remind you that when you write information books, you try to interest your reader. Readers love fasinating fats, and they love ideas, too. Writers make sure their writing ontains both fats and ideas. Weaving together fats and ideas is triky work. You ll want to demonstrate for students how you do this work, modeling how you weave ideas into the fats you ve already been writing. For the ative engagement, you ould projet another paragraph of your writing and invite students to try weaving in ideas. Asking yourself, So what? is often useful to help yourself think about why the fats you re writing matter. As students head off to write, you ll want to see them using this strategy to draft new hapters. Students should also be revising the hapters they ve already drafted based on this new strategy. By day four in the bend, your students should have their hapters drafted. We re reommending Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

15 Teahers College Reading and Writing Projet Writing Curriular Calendar, Third Grade, Unit 6 - Writing About Researh 15 that you teah students that information writers try out different ways their hapters might go, writing different versions of a hapter based on different text strutures. For your onnetion, you might referene your students experienes playing Mineraft. You ould tell a story about a student who was playing Mineraft, when all of a sudden, his world dissolved, and he had to reate a totally new one. Explain how Mineraft players have to be flexible. They an t get tied to any one world, beause they often need to try out a new one, a different version. Then, transition into your teahing point. You might say, Today I want to teah you that writers play! Just like players in Mineraft build different worlds, it an help to try out your hapters multiple ways, to be reative, until you find the best way things ould go. Today I want to teah you that writers play! Just like players in Mineraft build different worlds, it an help to try out your hapters multiple ways, to be reative, until you find the best way things ould go. Then, you ould model for students how you take a hapter you ve already drafted and onsider different ways it ould go. As you do this, referene the Researhers Take Notes that Follow the Struture of their Texts hart from Bend II of the Researh Clubs unit or the tables of ontents you made in Session 3 of The Art of Information Writing. Show students how you think through two or three different strutures you ould use for that hapter. To do this, you might say, Here s a hapter I ve been writing on frog habitats. Right now, it s just a blob of information. Let me think about other ways this hapter might go, other ways I might be able to teah. Hmm. well, maybe I ould write the hapter as ompare and ontrast, ause frogs live in different habitats. I ould tell about the habitats and how they re similar and different from eah other. Or, maybe I ould use problem and solution. I ould tell about problems frogs fae and how they solve them with their habitats. Like, a problem is it s getting old, and a solution might be that you ould burrow into the ground below the frost line. Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 15 of 21 Demonstrate for students how you quikly hoose one of those strutures, make a brief plan for your hapter, and then begin redrafting your hapter with that new text struture in mind. Then, invite students to try this out with another one of your hapters. Coah them through the steps. They ould first think, What strutures ould I try here? How would that go? Then, they ould hoose one and try writing it in the air. When you send students off to draft, enourage them to rewrite their own hapters, using their knowledge of text struture to help them try out new ways their hapters ould go. Remind them to draw on earlier strategies they ve learned as they try this work, elaborating with a variety of information and weaving in ideas as they write. During the share, you might invite students to put their original hapters and their new hapters side-by-side. You ould invite students to ompare the hapters and make deisions about whih hapters they want to revise further. As you did in Bend I, you ll want to devote at least one day to the work that your researh lubs do together. During the fifth day of this bend, you might invite students to ollaborate within their researh lubs to make sure that their fats are aurate. Session 9 in The Art of Information Writing, Researhing Fats and Ensuring Text Auray, will be a great resoure as you plan this session. You ould revise that teahing point so that it also inludes ways that researh lubs an ollaborate. You ould say, Today I want to teah you that writers don t just write, write, write all the stuff from their brains. Real writers are researhers. Writers often leave the page, searhing through their notebooks, books or piking the brains of their o-researhers for the perfet fat or example. During your minilesson, you ould model for students how you do a little researh to find Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om