Name: A Room of Writers
Uploaded: 2019-09-06T06:40:04.000Z
Duration: 10 min 3 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

At Springhill Lake Elementary in Greenbelt, Maryland, a class of third graders is living

Adverbs of manner

There's a big castle and you can hear birds singing and you can only drive limos.

In actuality these students are getting a very grounded education in writing thanks

It was little scary at first to teach writing because of all the different layers that go

There's mechanics, and ideas, and purpose, and audience, and genre, and then on top of

that, you want them to be able to express themselves in a really interesting way for

But every single year, I learn something new to help them to just keep layering their skill

Ms. Sterkin set a solid base for this scaffolding by creating a classroom environment where

writing is fully integrated into the day.

When you take a look at elementary schools and the state of writing instruction, there's

One, there's very little writing going on by kids.

Second, there's very little instruction writing going on.

Ms. Sterkin is determined to make sure her class is an exception.

For example, to keep her students writing every day, Ms. Sterkin had each of them create

In it, they can brainstorm and draft ideas, which they can then share with the class.

The first week of school, we start with their own writer's notebooks.

We talk about the kind of space they need as a writer.

And we also give them a lot of time to share, so that they're comfortable sharing their

writing and when it's time for them to go through the revision process, they know that

they're able to share in a way that isn't really scary for them.

What are some things you like about Mohammed's details?

That it smells like strawberry and flowers.

It really helped us visualize with our five senses what it's like there.

Nina, what did you like about Mohammed's?

I like about Mohammed's that he kinda added a little bit part of poetry.

And it's not just the students who take part.

Writing teachers need to see themselves as writers too.

You have to be confronting both the satisfactions and the challenges of the writers task and

Being willing to show them a piece of writing that you have to fix and revise.

You can't just be one who assigns and grades.

Shimmering purple trails, led me to the journey to his kingdom.

I might have to re-read that and make it sound a little better.

With each step I took, purple sparkles swiftly scooted from beneath my feet.

And what is it when I add two words together with the same beginning sound?

Besides creating regular writing opportunities for students, this workshopping provides a

chance for them to give and receive feedback effectively.

I think the students cheer for each other because we would cheer for them when they

And when we start in the beginning of the year, we would specifically find examples

in the students writing that they should be proud of.

And then we would invite the other students and specifically ask them, "what are some

things you noticed in this person's writing that you really think they did a great job

on" and " what are some of the things that maybe you can suggest that would make it more

After Ms. Sterkin's class, these particular entries also acted as a pre-writing exercise

Okay, let's talk about what we're going to do today.

Today we're going to start writing our fairytales.

And before we write our fairytale, we're going to talk a little bit about what some really

We had some awesome examples of good writers in the last couple of days.

Ms. Sterkin is referring to her use of mentor texts, which are pieces of writing whose idea,

structure, or written craft can be used to inspire students own writing.

And we're also going to read a story today called Crickwing.

And it's not a fairytale, but the author did something really special in that book that

made the story sound exciting when we read it.

And it helped us visualize what the characters in the story were doing.

So we're going to see what special trick that author used and we're going to see if we can

use it today in our fairytale writing too.

The ideal way to look at the notion of mentor texts is that children, as readers, are noticing

what they can use as writers., and finding mentor text that work for them.

So it's not just saying here's a model text, everyone be Shakespeare.

When something is vivid, it's really easy for us to see.

So when we have a vivid verb, it's easy for us to visualize it in our head.

And in this story, Janell Cannon used a lot of vivid verbs.

I don't think she used a whole lot of plain verbs.

All of them are so easy for us to visualize in our head when we read her story.

So, as we read, if you hear a vivid verb, I'd like you to hold up "V." What is "V" for?

"Far below the great forest canopy lies a shadowy world that many insects call home.

Among the damp clutter of fallen leaves and branches, leaf-cutting ants toil all day while

large cockroaches await their evening search for food."

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A Room of Writers

imitate

intimate

character

specifically