#SOLSC20: Day 20
I pulled my chrome book out of its case and plugged it in.
Power? Good.
Connection? Good.
The scroll across the bottom of the TV caught my eye as a rumble filled the air.
Oh, yeah, severe storm alert today.
WRONG!
Tornado alert.
And my county.
Crap!
I don’t have time for the internet to be interrupted.
I have a Twitter chat tonight and I need to change out two slides.
Pre-tweet moved.
Original tweet deleted.
Message to the team; “Not available for any task tonight.”
Thunder continued to rumble.
And then pound, pound, pound.
Down came the hail.
Bouncing up to a foot off the ground.
Solid balls of ice.
Chipped balls of ice.
Cold.
Dreary.
Dark.
Now, hailing!
Yukko!
Good thing I needed to be inside tonight.
Too bad I didn’t get out in the 63 degree weather earlier this afternoon.
It was a long night.
I put my chrome book back in the case.
It was a dark and stormy night.
When does the beginning of your story match the ending?
How does that make you (the reader) feel?
Where might you try this craft move?
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for this daily forum in March. Check out the writers and readers here.
#SOLSC20: Day 11
Flames
Red tongues leaping skyward
A wall of flames
Directed by the wind,
Steadily moving,
Stealthily moving,
Radiating heat.
A wall of flames stretching toward the house
Charred path behind,
Demanding action,
Fast-paced decisions,
No time for fear,
No time to waste.
Process: I began with this line, “I was greeted by a wall of flames about 40 feet long and 2 feet high on the other side of my driveway yesterday afternoon.” from this post. (Link)
Goal: Build in more description by bundling standards
CCSS Anchor Writing Standard 4. “Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.”
CCSS Writing 4.3.d. “Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.”
CCSS Language Standard 4.6. “Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that are basic to a particular topic (e.g., wildlife, conservation, and endangered when discussing animal preservation).”
Craft: twin phrases, repetition, specific words
How did this play with poetry add to the description from the original sentence? How can “notebook play with words and ideas” provide revision practice? How do you demonstrate/model this?
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for this daily forum in March. Check out the writers and readers here.
#SOL18: Hello, friends!
Literacy is important. It’s been a part of my life for years. Teaching, modeling, teaching, modeling, demonstrating! And yesterday was no different,
EXCEPT
I was a learner in the audience. A learner.
Here’s just a window into the learning:
If you are on twitter, you may know where I was and who I was with for my learning fun. but if you were not online, think about these quotes.
What surprises you?
What is worth talking about?
What would you say to a thought partner?
What would you write?
Instruction needs to change. Students need to be engaged. That doesn’t mean teachers need to do “a song and a dance” every day. But teachers do need to think about the needs of their students. And how students’ needs and teachers’ needs can both be met in better ways. Responsive teaching is hard. It means that the data from today drives the instruction for tomorrow. That data comes from a variety of sources: conferences, book talks, flipgrid responses, book check ins, student goals, teacher goals, the questions students ask, the questions students do NOT ask, student writing, and teacher writing.
It’s not a unit per quarter. It’s not a whole class novel per quarter. It’s not low level responses. It’s not fake reading. It’s not giving up accountability. It’s not about abdicating responsibility for learning.
It’s also not easy.
Teachers are change agents
Teachers change the world.
What was the message?
Here is a quick glimpse . . .
Who were these masterminds of change?
In West Des Moines, Iowa
About 340 of us . . .
Engaged
Empowered
Great learning!
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Kelsey, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this weekly forum from Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. 
Additional Resources:
Literacy Lenses: Link
Resourceful – Planning
Travis Crowder Review
#DigiLitSunday: Craft
Check out the links to other DigiLit Sunday posts at Margaret Simon’s blog here.
Craft: What is it?
A woodworker has many tools that may range from hand tools like chisels. planes and mallets to power tools like saws, drills, and presses that can aid the process of turning out finely crafted projects.
Is the craft in the “Doing” or is the craft in the “Final Product”?
In writing there are many sources of craft. Some of my favorites are:
Lucy Calkins,
Ralph Fletcher,
Lester Laminack, and
Stacey Shubitz to name just a few.
So many sources of craft information exist. Do I need craft information along the way as I draft or do I need the information as I revise and improve the clarity, anticipate a reader’s questions, and add additional information to make the work more interesting? I believe that writers need both skills. The more that a writer knows and anticipates in the drafting process, perhaps the revision will become less burdensome.
What is a teacher to do? Where should the teacher begin?
Many strategies and craft moves can be and are taught, but at some point the choices used by writers will come down to the individual authors. Strategic use of those moves needs to fit within the piece of writing that the author has undertaken. A wide repertoire of moves that fit into a grade level range of writing will come from mentor texts. Those mentor texts are often published texts, teacher written texts or student written texts. What a student will use will depend on the applicability to this piece. Teaching students to “self-assess” and even to “self-reflect” on their use of craft will be important. That’s one of the reasons why I believe these items in a fifth grade opinion writing checklist that students can use are absolutely critical!
Writers make many decisions as they draft and revise about their own writing. Tools with visible examples that students can use when talking about their writing or matching to a checklist or a rubric will put the power of writing choices in the hands of students.
Resource - Full 