Secondary Literacy:Informal Writing

As you walk in,

1.Make sure you have a blank piece of paper (come to the front if you need one) and a pen/pencil.

2.No laptops needed.

Who is doing the thinking in your class?

Objectives & Agenda

• Describe a variety of informal writing activities that can be included in lesson plans.

• Articulate how they prompt students to think deeply and strategically about the content you are teaching.

5 min Quick Intro to Informal Writing

45 min

Informal Writing Activities - INM - Guided Practice - Extension

10 min Closing & Exit Ticket

Formal v. Informal Writing

Formal v. Informal Writing

Format: Extended written compositions

Purpose: Follows writing process

Format: Short, quick, daily assignments

Purpose: Opportunity to process content using comprehension strategies!

Evaluation: Content, style, mechanics

Evaluation: Content

Connections to Good Teaching

P3: Create objective-driven lesson plans.

(Informal writing can be strategically incorporated into

lessons to ensure deep mastery of the objectives).

E1: Clearly present academic content.

E2: Manage student practice.

(Informal writing ensures students

are engaged in and establishing

meaningful connections to the material).

Key Points

Writing about what is being learned builds student comprehension, and therefore is important in all disciplines

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Remember Our Comprehension Strategies?

• Self Monitoring

• Asking Questions

• Predicting

• Inferring

• Visualizing

• Making Connections

INM: Recall Notes

When?

During & After Learning

How?•During learning, students take notes in the right column. •After learning, in the left column, students write headings, questions, or other notes to help them “recall” the information.

Recall Clues

Key Points

Sample Recall Notes

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Recall Clues & Questions Key Points & Concepts

Why did Castro & Khruschev both desire intermediate-range missiles in Cuba?

How and when did the US find out about missiles being built?

1) 1962-Soviet Union behind US in arms racE: US had Europe but not US2) After Bay of Pigs, Castro afraid of 2nd US attack on Cuba long-range missilies, Soviety missiles could reach3) Oct 1962-reconnaissance photos showed Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba

What’s the benefit of using this writing activity?

How could this meet the needs of your ELL students?

INM: Stop & Jot

• When?

Before, during, and after learning

• How?

At a strategic point in the lesson (i.e. right after a key point), have students “stop” and quickly “jot” down what they have just learned, in their own words.

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How are these useful for the teacher?

INM & Guided Practice: Written Conversation

• When?

Before, during, or after learning

• How?

Students compose an answer to a question. They exchange papers and write responses, as many times as the teacher finds necessary. At the end of the activity, the student revises or restates his/her initial response.

Written Conversation – Let’s Try it

• On a blank sheet of paper, respond to the following question. Your response should be between 3-5 sentences.

Why should I ask my students to write in my class? How does this connect to my vision for

student success?

• Now, read the previous writer’s response, and respond by making a comment or suggestion, or posing a question.

Think-Write/Pair/Share

• When?

Before, during, or after learning

• How?

Independently, students compose a short written response to a question. When they finish, they “pair” with a classmate and “share” their response. They may also “share” their joint response with the whole class.

Extension Activities: RAFT

• When?

After learning

• How?

Students compose a short essay or poster in which they take on a particular Role, Audience, Format, and Topic.

• Example:

Role = Polar bear

Audience = US Congress

Form = A letter of complaint

Topic = The effects of global warming

RAFT - Examples

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7th Grade Math Objective: Estimate and determine solutions to application problems involving proportional relationships such as similar figures,

Role: Detective

Audience: Press conference

Format: Press release

Topic: How you found the missing side!

RAFT - Examples

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8th Grade Science Objective: Relate plate tectonics to the formation of crustal features.

Role: Explorer

Audience: Friends and family back home

Format: Letter

Topic: Crustal features discovered on exploratory mission

What could go wrong here?

Role: Sodium

Audience: Chloride

Form: Love Letter

Topic: Ionic bonding

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RAFT – Practice

• Work with other teachers in the same content area:– Write a RAFT assignment for the appropriate objective– Create an “exemplar student response” to share.

Math: Solve percent application problems (e.g., discounts, tax, finding the missing value of percent/part/whole) OR identify, describe and analyze polygons, (for example, convex, concave, regular, pentagonal).

ELA: Make inferences in order to analyze characters in a text (you choose the text).

Biology: Identify the direction of information flow from DNA to mRNA to proteins 5 minutes!

Opening & Closing: Journals

• When?

After Learning

• How?

In a notebook, students explain what they have learned and why it matters.

• ELA: Reader’s response journals, writer’s notebooks

• Science: Lab notebooks, hypothesis notebooks, observation notebooks, questions & what I’ve learned

• Math: what I’ve learned, create your own word problems

Sample Journal Prompts

• Math: Describe one similarity and one difference between a ratio and a percentage.

• ELA: Write about a time when you had a conflict and how you resolved it.

• Science: Name at least two uses for the polymer we used in yesterday’s lab.

Now, you try it!

2 minutes

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Final Key Points

In many lessons, informal writing activities can be excellent additions to INM, guided practice, and independent practice.

Informal writing is evaluated for content, not form, style, or mechanics.

Closing

• Questions? angelica.leveroni@gmail.com

• Want to see an exemplar lesson plan that incorporates informal writing?

CMCD Week 3 Lit Handouts Informal Writing Handout 3

• Additional Resources:– Secondary Literacy Curriculum Text (Chapter 5)– http://tulsasecondarylit.wikispaces.com

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Exit Ticket: Lesson Plan Annotation

• On one of your upcoming lesson plans:– Pick one informal writing strategy to insert into your lesson cycle

that will help your students master that objective.– Using the comment feature, explain how that will help push your

students towards achievement.

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Daily Journals

Activity Before, During, or After Learning?

Type of Thinking/ Comprehension Strategy Utilized

Purpose/Type of Lesson

DAILY JOURNALS

While there are many different forms of journals, in content area classrooms

most teachers use content-focused journals.

Before, during, or after learning

Depends on the prompt, often a good way to practice making connections, summarizing, inferring, making predictions…but journals can really be used to target any comprehension strategy or any level of thinking on Bloom’s!

Purpose = to process learning in a “free-form” way; to allow a line of communication between teacher and student

Lesson = any type

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Stop and Jot

Activity Before, During, or After Learning?

Type of Thinking/ Comprehension Strategy Utilized

Purpose/Type of Lesson

STOP AND JOT

The teacher simply stops the students mid-activity and directs them to reflect quickly in writing on what they are reading, seeing, or hearing.

During learning Any comprehension strategies can be practiced, depends on the prompt given by the teacher.

Purpose = to practice a comp strategy depends on teacher prompt

Lesson = when students are listening to a long lecture/ reading a long passage/during a demonstration and would benefit from processing learning along the way.

Admit/Exit Slips

Activity Before, During, or After Learning?

Type of Thinking/ Comprehension Strategy Utilized

Purpose/Type of Lesson

ADMIT/EXIT SLIPS

These are brief writing

assignments that can be collected as “admission” to class or “permission” to leave class, and are

primarily used as quick, written checks for understanding

After learning (admit slips used to “get in” to class the next day)

Depends on the prompt given, but almost any comprehension strategy can be practiced (common strategy includes Summarizing. Thinking could be at any level of Bloom’s – since the prompts usually require a short answer, most likely levels below Synthesis.

Purpose = provides the teacher a quick check for understanding

Lesson = can occur at the end of any type of lesson

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RAFT

Activity Before, During, or After Learning?

Type of Thinking/ Comprehension Strategy Utilized

Purpose/Type of Lesson

RAFT

Students are allowed to choose their particular Role, Audience, Format, and Topic from

the list. I.E.

Role= Water drop

Audience=U.S. Senator

Format=Letter

Topic= Effects of acid rain

After learning Summarizing, Making Inferences (about how a particular “role” might write about a particular “topic” and in a particular “format”), Synthesis.

Purpose = focuses students on the four critical aspects of writing (role, audience, format, topic); writing from a different perspective prompts a deeper understanding of the topic .