In Texas, the primary assessment model has focused on Narrative writing (K-8), so for many, many years my 6th graders have had most of their elementary writing instruction and practice with the Narrative model. This year, the Texas Education Agency changed the focus to Expository.
My district has just bought a text titled, The Comprehensive Expository Writing Guide written by Barbara Mariconda and Dea Paoletta Auray. The trademark is Empowering Writers and 'they' say they are "Teacher Friendly", "Data Driven", and have "Proven Results". I am picking and choosing carefully what I am trying with my 6th graders and believe so far what I have used is teacher and student friendly. My focus has been to help the students in gaining a clear and concise understanding of the difference in the genre and organization of narrative, expository, and persuasive writing. The book is over 400 pages and is filled with useful information, guided practice lessons, and page after page of opportunities for application. This is a transition time and for that reason this text has been helpful. I am not trying to sell a product by any means!! If interested, the website is www.empoweringwriters.com. Mrs. Marsha Foltermann 6th grade, ELAR 903-462-7307 For a conference, please call the office: 903-462-7200 [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sally Thomas Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 1:22 PM To: mosaic listserve Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] elementary writing programs Hate to sound snarky but shouldn't the administration be able to describe what they mean by appropriate persuasive and analytical for these age levels? And also tell you why? Just bugs the heck out of me when people throw out ideas which they often don't know anything about. That said, I would think about the kinds of things kids would be interested in persuading people about and go from there. Find mentor texts. An example that we used at our school: every year kids have the opportunity to vote for the California Young Readers Medal. They are given 3 books at primary, intermediate etc. to choose from. They have to have read (individually or as class) each book to vote. We had our students write persuasive essays (we actually used letters) to convince others of their choice. It was great.(My kids read samples of persuasive texts and came up with a rubric. I taught 5/6. Isn't there a great picture book where a child tries to persuad his mother to get a certain kind of pet? (I forget the title but it was a good one!) I would check James Moffett's classic work on genres and writing - the kinds of authentic writing we do in the world and connected to developmental levels. I know we spent many years on the state language arts assessment committee in California exploring the kinds of writing that it was appropriate to assess and how to formulate authentic type tasks and so on. Moffet's work informed some of the decisions about the types of writing to assess at various levels. We found for example that when we tried to assess information type writing, most of what we got was pretty bad writing - stiff and boring. And kids who didn't have background on whatever the topic (which happens in testing situations often) were especially disadvantaged. I am disgusted by much of what goes for writing assessment currently. We've lost sooooo much ground in writing over the last more than decade. In short, I am not against persuasive or analytic as long as the writing experience is authentic and meaningful to children's lives. Be careful. Calkins work (along with the great teachers who helped her) is probably most meaningful to developing students as writers for the long run. Just IMOl!!! Sally On 1/9/12 8:50 AM, "Beth OConnor" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, > I am looking for suggestions on writing programs that could complement > Lucy Calkins in grades K-5. Because of the Common Core, our > administration would like us to focus more on persuasive and > analytical writing and less on personal narratives. Does anyone use > anything for this type of writing that they would recommend? > Thank you, > Beth > > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.or > g > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
