WEBVTT 00:00:03.050 --> 00:00:04.670 Anthony: Hi, my name is Amiee Anthony. 00:00:04.670 --> 00:00:08.630 I’m a reading specialist here at Eagle View Elementary in Fairfax, Virginia. 00:00:08.630 --> 00:00:12.160 If we’re trying to teach a student to write to a particular purpose or we’re trying 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:17.930 to introduce a genre, what we do is we immerse the students in reading and really understanding 00:00:17.930 --> 00:00:19.659 that particular genre. 00:00:19.659 --> 00:00:24.489 We look at the author and the way the author structures that text and the techniques the 00:00:24.489 --> 00:00:26.029 author uses. 00:00:26.029 --> 00:00:30.060 We write to persuade, we write to inform, or we write to entertain. 00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:35.350 First, we want the students to be able to read a text, determine what those different 00:00:35.350 --> 00:00:39.480 purposes are, and then we want to teach those students to be able to write to those different 00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:41.350 forms as well. 00:00:46.350 --> 00:00:48.890 This is Ms. El-Amin’s first-grade classroom. 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:51.620 She is continuing with her unit on fairy tales. 00:00:51.620 --> 00:00:57.019 The class has already read a lot of fairy tales and has already explored all of the 00:00:57.019 --> 00:00:59.940 different reasons and what makes a fairy tale. 00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:06.159 The components of good versus evil, the idea of magic or the element of magic and that 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:10.290 they’re make-believe, and what the author does in order to kind of take the reader to 00:01:10.290 --> 00:01:11.550 a faraway place. 00:01:11.550 --> 00:01:16.270 Ms. El-Amin, with her students, goes into a lot of detail about how fairy tales make 00:01:16.270 --> 00:01:18.620 us feel when we read them. 00:01:18.620 --> 00:01:23.570 And if a reader was to pick up a book and think that it was a fairy tale, they’re 00:01:23.570 --> 00:01:26.220 going to expect to see certain things. 00:01:26.220 --> 00:01:29.750 And so she teaches her students that if you are going to call it a fairy tale, you need 00:01:29.750 --> 00:01:34.610 to make sure that you have certain pieces of fairy tales, certain components of fairy 00:01:34.610 --> 00:01:37.770 tales, woven into the story that they’ve written. 00:01:37.770 --> 00:01:42.640 Boys and girls, as you were talking to me, it sounded like you had three kinds of ideas 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:45.860 about how to make our characters enjoyable. 00:01:45.860 --> 00:01:52.690 You told me that one thing that we needed to do was to add details, right? 00:01:52.690 --> 00:01:57.600 You told me another thing we need to do is to make sure that we have good 00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:00.450 and we have evil. 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:03.790 So I’ll be sure to make sure we have that. 00:02:03.790 --> 00:02:07.080 And then Sonia and Maya were talking about another idea. 00:02:07.080 --> 00:02:10.080 They said, “Make sure the readers feel something.” 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:15.360 That was really important because if the readers don’t really care about our characters, 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:19.330 are they going to want to keep reading the rest of the story that we’ve written? 00:02:19.330 --> 00:02:25.500 Not really. So it’s really important that our authors are going to include that part 00:02:25.500 --> 00:02:26.560 where we care about them. 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:30.980 Anthony: Today she’s focusing on characters and details, and teaching her students to 00:02:30.980 --> 00:02:35.090 apply those elements into their own writing. 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:38.290 This is Ms. Nam’s fourth-grade classroom. 00:02:38.290 --> 00:02:43.060 Today she is focusing her students on getting them to really understand 00:02:43.060 --> 00:02:44.280 the art of persuasive writing. 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:47.590 In order to do that, they need to think about who their audience is. 00:02:47.590 --> 00:02:48.990 Are they writing to an adult? 00:02:48.990 --> 00:02:50.740 Are they writing to a child? 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:55.930 And depending on who their audience is, will depend on what language they use, how they 00:02:55.930 --> 00:02:57.770 structure their arguments. 00:02:57.770 --> 00:03:04.770 One of the things that Ms. Nam does is to first read a text and to model in her words 00:03:05.010 --> 00:03:10.260 how she would go about taking that text that was geared to an adult and how she would go 00:03:10.260 --> 00:03:14.590 and change it to writing it with a different audience in mind, like a child. 00:03:14.590 --> 00:03:20.620 Student: If you want more field trips, then you have to use the automatic hand dryer. 00:03:20.620 --> 00:03:25.500 Nam: So we want to add the information about field trips, right, 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:26.270 using that money for field trips. 00:03:26.270 --> 00:03:29.090 How could we word it so a kid is excited about it? 00:03:29.090 --> 00:03:34.490 Anthony: She has the students go and they talk together, and then she works with them to 00:03:34.490 --> 00:03:36.470 create another passage. 00:03:39.470 --> 00:03:40.670 This is Ms. McHarg’s room. 00:03:40.670 --> 00:03:43.920 She is a sixth-grade teacher here at Eagle View Elementary, and she is working with her 00:03:43.920 --> 00:03:46.080 students on informational writing. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:53.080 Ms. McHarg is trying to move her students beyond just the explain-and-inform component 00:03:53.540 --> 00:03:55.720 of informational text. 00:03:55.720 --> 00:04:01.680 She is working on getting students to analyze text structures and how that can support the 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:04.750 information that they’re trying to convey in their own informational writing. 00:04:04.750 --> 00:04:08.690 McHarg: What we need to do right now is together brainstorm on the two main topics we’re 00:04:08.690 --> 00:04:10.260 going to focus on today. 00:04:10.260 --> 00:04:14.040 So we have the first topic, which was, “Who were some important people from the American 00:04:14.040 --> 00:04:14.510 Revolution?” 00:04:14.510 --> 00:04:18.488 Then we’re going to brainstorm a list for this question, which is, “What impact did 00:04:18.488 --> 00:04:21.589 the European explorers have on the American Indians?” 00:04:21.589 --> 00:04:25.620 So those are two very different types of questions but both related to our Social Studies unit 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:26.279 that we’ve had. 00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:29.669 And what we’ll do is we’ll brainstorm a list, then you’re going to go back, as 00:04:29.669 --> 00:04:33.319 your partner is, and you’re going to work on answering some of those questions based 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:34.779 on the topics that we brainstorm. 00:04:34.779 --> 00:04:37.999 And when we are brainstorming, we’ll also pick a couple text structures that would be 00:04:37.999 --> 00:04:40.449 appropriate to use to answer those questions. 00:04:40.449 --> 00:04:46.029 Anthony: When writing any text we encourage students to use prewriting strategies. 00:04:46.029 --> 00:04:51.189 One of the prewriting strategies that she is working with her students on is brainstorming. 00:04:51.189 --> 00:04:56.389 And knowing that there is more than one way to write informational text, she wants them 00:04:56.389 --> 00:05:00.430 to just kind of list out things so that they can kind of whittle them down and figure out 00:05:00.430 --> 00:05:02.749 what the best way to share that information will be. 00:05:02.749 --> 00:05:06.349 McHarg: Your research has to change based on which text structure you chose, and you 00:05:06.349 --> 00:05:10.729 might even have to change your text structure based on the research that you are finding. 00:05:10.729 --> 00:05:15.779 So all of that kind of winds together to be able to put together a really powerful informational 00:05:15.779 --> 00:05:16.550 piece of writing. 00:05:16.550 --> 00:05:20.919 Anthony: With each year, students have more and more background knowledge. 00:05:20.919 --> 00:05:26.779 We build on their foundation so that they are able to go and effectively write for whatever 00:05:26.779 --> 00:05:28.520 reason, for whatever purpose. 00:05:28.520 --> 00:05:34.849 It’s exciting to see how their writing changes as they grow and how they apply the strategies 00:05:34.849 --> 00:05:38.379 and how much they enjoy the writing process. 00:05:38.379 --> 00:05:39.610 And I’m really proud of them.