After introducing my procedures and organizing our interactive notebooks the first week of school, I wanted to start my 8th graders with a unit that engaged them in active reading and the writing process. We needed to warm up our skills from 7th grade before working with longer texts and research writing, so I began with our Personal Narrative Unit.
Within our writing lessons, we do review our material using games and discussion. This unit has two summative assessments: a unit quiz and their personal narratives.
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| Available for download and revising! |
I explain to my students that by placing the term on the front, and writing the definition on the lines of their notebook, we have created flashcards to use when studying. Some of my 8th graders loved this!
Having them cut and paste on our block lessons also provides them with a brain break. I allow them to grab their own materials and put the scraps into recycling. They get up and moving while still being on task.
I don't go through all seven terms on a single day. We began with the first four (nonfiction, autobiography, memoir, personal narrative) and they thought of the examples that they have either read or wrote themselves. We also compare and contrast how autobiography, memoir, and personal narrative are similar and different.
We then go through a short brainstorming process. We save these in our interactive notebooks in the Writing Section. For three minutes, the students make a list of memories in their lives that they could write about. We share some of our ideas. If we find that our ideas are too broad, we take more time to make them more specific for a writing assignment.
For example, students often say something like "My trip to Texas." Great! But can you write with specific details about the WHOLE trip to Texas in three pages? No probably not. Let's create a second list based on your broad topic. What did you do in Texas?
Lesson Two: We add our new term "setting" to our foldable. I then introduce our first text, which comes from our class textbook, McDougal Littell's The Language of Literature, Grade 8. Teachers could self select other texts, too.
We then read our first core-text, an excerpt for Doris Kearns Goodwin's Wait Till Next Year. As a class, we read aloud, but each student was held accountable with a small post-it to find a sentence that describes the setting. The only definition they have is that it either describes the time or place.
After reading the story, we share our post-its. Through discussion, we identify what types of details create the setting: sensory details!
This leads us into our second step for the writing assignment. We return to our brainstorm lists and I ask students to go through their lists to see which topics they have strong sensory details for. Then, we make a decision. The brainstorming continues. We created a list of the five senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch), and they listed what details they remembered about each of these. I don't require them to write in complete sentences, but to have enough information to remind them.
Lesson Three: We add the next term "anecdote" to our foldable. As eighth graders, my students understand that characters are an important part of their stories, but how do they present information about them?
We read our second core-text, an excerpt from Reeve Lindbergh's Flying and we try to identify the anecdotes as we read together. For the first anecdote, I demonstrate teacher think-aloud for inferences about characters. The second one we find, I ask them open-ended questions to draw their own inferences, and then the remainder they analyze themselves.
We are then able to brainstorm our characters and the anecdotes they can describe about their characters. We start by creating (another) list of who was with them. I tell them to consider the people directly with them and also bystanders they may have said "hello" to or exchanged a fun fact about a display they looked at.
The students then choose three characters to develop anecdotes. At this time, I give them a sentence starter. We completed an example about me.
Ms. Hansen is so organized that she spent a week helping us organize interactive notebooks with organized sections, page numbers, and even a table of contents.
The next class wrote this one:
Ms. Hansen is so crazy that one morning she was skipping down the hallway before the bell rang. In class she taught a lesson about the suffix "-al" and found it exciting. We all had to ask: "Did you drink coffee again?"
My students then wrote short anecdotes for their own characters.
The anecdotes that I expected my students to write were shorter and less complex than Lindbergh's, but our writing assignment is also shorter.
Lesson Four: We add our final term "theme" to our foldable. My eighth graders have studies theme seventh grade, so this is a reminder to them.
As a class, we went back and re-read the endings of our two core texts and identified the themes. We also noted how the theme seemed to reveal itself near the end of the text.
Students then read our last text Jewell Rhode's independently. Some students may be paired together based on learning needs. They then complete an Exit Slip. I post these directions on my board.
As part of our brainstorming, I then ask students to brainstorm what important themes their experiences have. They have to remember that they may have learned something, but that it also applies to their audience.
Lesson Five: Using all of their brainstorming, my students are then given writing days to complete a rough draft. We continue to keep these in our Writing Section. After all the brainstorming we did, my students were excited to have a writing day to put it all together.
I have to say, I was astounded by the writing that I got from my students. Not only was their length longer than required, but the amount of detail they included brought their writing to life. I also write a rough draft while my students do. I am available to answer questions and many of them like to share bits and pieces as they go, but I still add to my notebook with them.
Lesson Six: Now that students have their rough drafts, I present them with their formal directions and a rubric. Most of my rubrics follow the same format, so my students know what to expect. You can find my rubric (available for adaptation) here.
I then give them the first step in revising: where to add dialogue. This is just as important to the events and character development. Most of my students worried, "Ms. Hansen, we don't remember what we said." I give them the same advice my college writing teacher did: "You know the things you say, and you usually know what the people closest to you say. It's not fiction, but exaggeration."
I also demonstrate using my example of my rough draft. Then they have work to do on their own. After they go through their handwritten drafts writing notes where to add dialogue, I allow them to use computers to write their second drafts.
Lesson Seven: We talk about paragraph structure in fiction. We build off that they know about formal paragraph in our essays, but then I usually get a strange look when I tell them that they get to "break those rules!" No more topic sentences, no minimum number of sentences, no transition. Just the series of events.
This year I borrowed an anchor chart from online. Unfortunately, I cannot give credit to the original creator, but thank you!
Rather than having my students include this in our notes, we discuss and create a saying to remember when to change paragraphs. Then, we practice by going through my draft.
They then organize their writing into multiple paragraphs.
Lesson Eight: Peer review! I usually use a stack of index cards to group my students with a partner for this step. Thankfully, they are familiar with the peer review process with me.
I give them this handout to guide them with reading and reviewing with their partner. Afterwards, they get work time to revise. They then meet with their partner again to go through editing. Because I do weekly paragraph editing, I don't need to give specific directions on the editing process.
When my students feel that they have completed the writing process, they "share" via Google Docs, and turn in the rubric. I'm very strict about needing them to submit a rubric with their name on it. I explain that this is how I know that they writing assignment is complete, and that I don't want to give them a grade on a rough draft simply because it was shared.
I hope you find my unit and lesson overview helpful. May you create enjoyable, engaging, and effective lessons! Share your success stories with writing assignments and workshop.
