ENTRY #13: THE IMPACTS OF BLOGGING

While I was keeping a blog this semester it helped me meet the student learning outcomes of this course by self-reflecting, critically thinking and engaging in reading and writing. During this process I have read and written about all of the genres through the entry's in my blog. By reading Tompkins, partaking in a genre workshop and then creating an entry it allowed for me to explore my understanding of each genre's format and experiences I've had with each through the writing process. While I was writing my entries as well I had to think about the purpose of them and who my audience was, in order to craft the entry respectively. When I was crafting the entries, I had written in the format of a journal writing piece, giving my journal entries a title, writing in first person, holding text that examines my own observations of writing, my deeper thinking of genres, and questions that I had developed for myself as well as my peers and Dr. Jones. The purpose of my entries is evident, being that all of my entries explore my reflections on reading and writing in the classroom with the support of Tompkins and other articles I had read. In my blog entries I had thought through my writing, of strategies that we were introduced to that could be useful to my future students, and ways that I could incorporate them into my scheduled writing block. The biggest way I believe that this blog has helped me meet the student learning outcomes is how much writing I have done through my thinking in the blog entries. Writing has allowed for me to put my cognitive thinking down on paper, and has helped me to sort through the ideas in my head. The ability to have done this thinking through writing in my blog entries allowed for me to comprehend not just the readings but the genre workshops as well. The writing forced me to reflect on the key takeaways, what is the most impactful activities, and what questions am I still left with. It's important as both readers and writings, to have questions because our questions can lead to insightful discussions with our peers. 

I do want to add a note that within this process I have additional learned the impact of using our blogs as a way to form a discussion and gain new perspectives. My peers and myself have gone through this genre exploration and blog writing process together. However it's remarkable to see how we each have taken key attributes to the genre and explored them in different ways through our writing of entries. The weeks that I had gone through and read different blog entries from my peers, It made me have my own ah ha moments, think about a genre in a different light, or even answer a question of mine. I can see how blog entries can be used as a way to start discussion or gain perspective. In the future I hope that I can use journal writing in a way that my own students in the classroom in a way that they're able to reflect on their own thinking through writing, gain perspective from peers, and praise each other for their new learnings. 

ENTRY #12 : DANCING THROUGH THE GENRES

This semester I really felt like I was immersed into different genres through the Genre Expert Workshops. The workshops have really opened my eyes to different directions I can go when I teach the genres to students, and ways that I can support my students in some of the challenges they might face. When I started this semester I thought I knew the biography, and persuasive genre pretty well but I have developed a greater understanding of due to the way I was engaged during workshops. When I had dived into the genre of biography's I had found how complex the genre can be for students to write, specifically into the autobiography and memoir aspects of biography writing. In order for students to write about themselves they really need to be able to not only pick out the significant moments in their lives to write about but use the language that will help their reader visualize and become a part of that scene in their life. My understanding now of the impact and use of descriptive writing in memoir and autobiography, will help me to support my students. Depending on the age it could be helpful to have students use their five senses in helping them describe the event, for older students focusing on not only five senses but word choice will help them create pieces where their reader is immersed into the text. 

During Makayla, Sam, & Taylor's workshop on the persuasive genre, my eyes had opened to the way that we can immerse students into the genre. One of the activities that really had me thinking about how students can engage in the genre is analyzing digital or print advertisements. Students know a days are online frequently, and come across persuasive texts multiple times a day, even if they don't realize it. I think incorporating this activity into my classroom one day during persuasive writing workshop can really help students to understand the purpose of persuasive writing and how it's used in our society. The activity supports our students in understanding pathos, logos and ethos as well because they can make those connections based on how the text tried to persuade the reader to partake in, buy a product, etc. 

During this semester the analyzing of mentor texts has supported my knowledge by allowing for me to see how the authors format the genre, and the specific characteristics that are included in the texts. For example in the persuasive genre, I had read the book "The Day The Crayons Quit". I had never read this text before but it was directed towards persuading a kid why they shouldn't use as much of that color crayon, using pathos and logos. Students could analyze the text for how the crayons were trying to persuade the kid, to help write their own piece, using their knowledge of what are affective ways to persuade. It was interesting to see how genres can support other pieces of writing as well since this text was in the format of a letter, I think that when students can see the interrelationship between the genres their writing becomes stronger because they have developed the parts of the authors craft already. The use of mentor texts this semester has also allowed for me to have ideas of texts that I would like to use with my students while teaching the genre. During the letter genre, I had read the book "Diary Of A Worm", I thought that this would be a text that would be really supportive to my younger students. One, because they have the background knowledge of what a worm is, and its function in life and two, the text formats each page with a date the worm is writing and writes the letters directed towards a specific person. Text like these for younger students helps them to think about how they should write their letter but also understand the message of the text. 

ENTRY #11: A Deep Dive Into Poetry

In preparation for this weeks genre expert group, I really took some time to do some self-reflection with my own engagement with poetry. As a student myself I found poetry to be a drag, and I never quite understood the purpose. The big question to me was, why would someone write in this format?, and why does it feel like there are so many hidden messages? Why can't it be direct, instead of having to make analyze the meaning? I kind of related poetry to Jazz, both holding mysterious, deep meanings that I just didn't understand. I think that the reason the genre frustrated me so much at the time is because it forced me to be a critical thinker. I believe I was in 3rd or 4th grade, we were working on creating poems and our teacher had shown us some of Robert Frost poems. One in particular that I remember is "Nothing Gold Can Stay", I was so frustrated because I could read the words in the poem without any problems but I didn't understand what I was reading. In Tompkins (2012) chapter 7 on Poetry writing she mentioned that poetry is a "concise form the evokes readers emotional responses... poets choose words carefully and structure lines and stanzas in creative ways." (p.156). I'm wondering if maybe I hadn't challenges with understanding the meaning because I wasn't grasping the emotions that the author of the poem was portraying that nothing stays perfect forever, because at that age I wasn't able to see any challenges in life.

However, even though my experience with poetry wasn't necessarily enjoyable for me, I have witnessed in elementary schools the positives and excitement it can bring to students. I substitute at Thornell Elementary in Pittsford, and this month is poetry month, every morning a couple students come over the loud speaker and read a poem that they really like, or that is an original of theres. I think this is a great way to immerse a whole school into the genre, it also shows students that poetry can look and sound different. As Tompkins (2012) mentions in chapter 7 "Many students have misconceptions about what poetry is... they think poetry has to rhyme, or they're unsure how it should look on a page." (p.171). I think that when students are listening in the morning they can hear how different each poem is, some rhyme and some don't, some evoke happy/excited emotions while some bring emotions of sadness, anger. I guess a question of mine as a teacher would be is their a line of what emotions our students should be guided to write, or because part of the authors craft is being able to evoke emotions in the writing we allow our students to write portraying any emotion they desire? 

ENTRY #10: Round of Applause for Amanda!

 

After looking through peers blogs this week, Amanda's blog draw me in! I first would like to bless Amanda on the way she's developed her blog. When viewing Amanda's blog, the text font used is easy to read, the colors make me feel relaxed, making my mind ease, I was also able to easily navigate through different articles. One other touch to Amanda's blog that drew me into the entry that I read through is her creation of titles that are captivating to the readers to click on to read. I had clicked on Amanda's Entry #9 titled YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BLOG, after reading through the entry I really appreciated Amanda's use of lots of examples of her past experiences trying to be persuaded, and observations of what she's seen being down in the class using persuasive writing. I found myself able to really connect to her experiences as well, when Amanda had mentioned, being most influenced "by Pathos- cue the song "In The Arms of an Angel", it made me stop and think about all the times that I was watching tv and immediately had to flip the channel when I heard the song start because I also feel that I'm most influenced by being persuaded though Pathos (Emotions). In conjunction with this idea that maybe a person has an appeal that is most likely to influence them, It made me think of the identity's of our audience when we write. 

 In Tompkins, chapter 11,  she writes, "Writers' ability to tailor writing to fit their audience is arguably more important in persuasive writing than in other genres..."(p.252). The combination of Amanda's blog and Tompkins quote I would like to address the question, "Does our identity's effect the appeals we use when writing a persuasive piece?" or "How might knowing the identity of our audience tailor the appeals that we use when we're using the persuasive genre to write?". Amanda had mentioned in her blog, that during her undergraduate placement, she observed a 3rd grade teacher guiding her students to writing a persuasive letter to the principal on why extra recess time is important. When I was thinking about what these students reasons might have been I was thinking they might mention, more recess time means more exercise which keeps them healthy, or maybe more time to play with their friends makes them happy. These students have different identity's from each other but the identity they have in common is their kids and their students, their responses probably are more likely to have appeals to pathos and logos because at a young age you tend to think of your own feelings first before thinking about how it can be beneficial to someone else as well. However thinking of a response that might come from a student that might identify as having ADHD maybe a written response would be, "it would help me to get my energy out so I can focus on my work better".  Of course this is a hypothetical responses I played out as a way to try and clarify my exploration of this question that was inspired by Amanda's entry. I would be curious to hear what Amanda's thoughts would be on the impact of our persuasive writing pieces and the impact our identity could have on that. 

ENTRY #9: Using Writing to think about Genre Project

 As it gets closer and closer to the day my group will be presenting to the class how to teach Biography's, I have been exploring different articles that could be useful to support our presentation. One of the articles that I found and think could be useful combines ideas from Tompkins on the importance of using mentor texts but through a genre study approach. The article "Teaching Memoir In The Elementary School Classroom" by Tara Gibney, really allowed for me to think more deeply about ways I can indulge future students into a genre, and one that can be considered more complex than other genres. There are two big takeaways that I had when reading this article that I thought can be valuable to our presentation. One, the importance of having time during each session to share their writing, this allows for students "opportunities to discuss problems or roadblocks... In addition, knowing that they have an authentic audience with whom to share their work makes the writing meaningful to the students and motivates them to develop and improve their craft." (Gibney, 2012, p. 245). When thinking about how I can portray this as part of our genre presentation, I'm thinking that maybe, we take time after one of our planned activities to discuss what roadblocks our students might have, just as our peers might have had when creating for example a 6 word memoir of themselves. Maybe even provide a slide of ways that we can help our students through the roadblocks they face and also tie it into how knowing our audience when writing memoirs can help, because these are such short significant events in our life, the writer needs to be really honest for this type of writing which can also be tricky for students.

Supporting Tompkins idea the second big takeaway is, the importance of "students need to read the genre to write the genre"(Gibney, 2012 p. 245). The article showed me in a different light how I can use mentor texts as a tool to teach the genre. In the article the Gibney's class uses their different mentor texts to find examples of what a good lead looks like to assist in their own writing of a lead for their memoirs. I found this to be really interesting, I hadn't thought to look at specific sections of the genre such as the lead to understand that it looks different from other genres such as an expository writing. Also if you've ever worked with a student while they are writing their first couple of sentences in their writing it is very obvious how tricky it can be for them to think of ways to grab their audience, instead of just starting their story like "There was a girl who...". This made me think about the other parts of memoirs that are going to be important for the writer to be able to do such as the use of descriptive language in order for the reader to really imagine the memory of the writers. Tompkins mentions that memoirs "...create engaging narratives by developing powerful images, incorporating vivid details..." (p.232).  I'm wondering if maybe during our presentation it would be a good idea to talk about how memoirs, and personal narratives really use their five senses to create the memory. As we talked about last week there are overlapping features in some genres to another. 

References 

Gibney. (2012). Teaching memoir in the elementary school classroom: A genre study

                approach. The Reading Teacher, 66(3), 243–253.

ENTRY #8: "Bless, Address, or Press"

 As I was reading through my peers journal entries this week I found myself particularly intrigued with my peers own experiences with the writing process from a learner to a teacher perspective. Some of my peers seem to have had great memories of using the step by step process that Tompkins has shared with us in the text (Figure 1-1) while others it's bits and pieces. I think the reason I find it so interesting is because I had thought that our experiences would be the same across the state because we all were going through the same grades at the same time and teachers were to be following the same curriculum that is given by the state. However when I was reading I realized how different all of our experiences were in regards to what we really took away. I really reflected on Elise's 1st paragraph in her  Blog Entry #2 . Elise stated "I don't specifically remember the design of a writer's workshop, as illustrated in this week's texts. However, as I dig deep, I can remember aspects of the workshop design." Elise then goes into talking about the drafting and revising stages being the most prominent to her memory and experiences as she went through creating pieces of writings. In comparison my own memories of the writing process mostly reflect the prewriting stage and drafting stage. I remember countless arrays of graphic organizers, used before putting any kind of writing draft together, and then creating the draft using the graphic organizer and just filling in extra sentences to support the ideas. 

What this takes me to is Elise's beginning comment "... what I have learned is reflected in my writing today." I agree with Elise I think that our writing pieces we create today are a reflection of what we took away from our experiences with the writing process in our K-12 instruction. That brings me to address the question, how can we make instruction as teachers that our students are vividly going to remember as they move up in grade levels? There is something that isn't connecting if all of us have memories of parts and pieces of the writing process but not a confident image of the writing process as a whole. Maybe our different memories are a reflection of our teachers not having the confidence when they were teaching writing. In Calkins & Ehrenworth article they raise the idea that "many writing teachers find writing a bit frightening, possibly because they do not often write as adults other than in the service of routine tasks."(2016, p.14).  

I'm curious if Elise notices any gaps or areas of weakness in her writing today because of this. I, myself have started to notice my flaws, I tend to use my first draft when writing without creating a second draft to improve ideas, or concepts. As well as skipping steps such as proofreading in the editing stage. I think that as we're going through the process of learning the writing process through Tompkins eyes we can more noticeable see the gaps and press ourselves as writers to be aware of what we need to do to be successful in our own writing and teaching the writing process to our students. 

Thank you Elise for being so reflective on the writing process it really made me think more deeply about how everyones experience is different and reflects how we write today.  

Reference

Calkins, L. & Ehrenworth, M. (2016). Growing extraordinary writers: Leadership decisions to                         raise the level of writing across a school and a district. The Reading Teacher, 70(1),                      7- 18.

Coon, (2022). Entry 2. Elise C. SP22 618 Blog.

ENTRY #7 Using Writing to Think About the Letter Genre

In preparation this week for our second genre presentation I read the Tompkins chapter 5 personal writing, which included both the genre journals and the genre letter writing. As I was reading I started to think about how these two genres might be confusing for students to differentiate. Journals should be more personal since when you write a journal you're the primary audience for that journal. A teacher might be reading it but it's for your own reflection. I would argue that grammar, and errors don't particularly matter, as Tompkins (2012) supports this idea as well, "Students journal writing is often spontaneous and loosely organized, and it contains more errors in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation than other types of writing because writers are more focused on ideas" (p.108). Letters should be a more formal type of writing because your audience is very specific, you have a very specific purpose for writing that letter and they're going to be looking at how your writing physical looks "include the date, a greeting, the body and a closing" (Tompkins, p.117). I think that where the confusion could come from if it's not explicitly taught correctly, would be that they're both a type of personal writing. Thinking about this I think a mentor text could be used to compare the two different genre pieces of writing. 

One of the mentor texts I have actually chosen this week, "Dear Mr.Henshaw" by Beverly Clearly seems to combine the two types of genre writings together. I'm wondering if maybe this book could be used in classrooms for students to reflect on how Leigh's (the main character) writing to Mr.Henshaw fits the letter genre and look at the differences when it switches to Leigh just writing a letter as a journal and not sending it. I think I would introduce this book/read the book before I want the students to send a letter to there own author, it can be a great way to talk about what the letter should look like and some ways that Leigh's letter writing doesn't fit how we should write to an author. For example the format of the letter writing matches Tompkins description of date, greeting, body and closing. A way it's more like a journal is Leigh's word choice such as using words like "dumb" (Clearly, p.14), and "mediumest"(Clearly, p.15). I really think that this book could bring about great conversations/discussion about writing a letter and journal writing to help students see the differences. I'd be curious to look into Beverly Clearly thought process when writing Dear Mr.Henshaw, to see if she purposefully combined the two genres of writing. 

References 

Cleary, Beverly. (1983). Dear Mr. Henshaw. New York: W. Morrow

ENTRY #6: Reflecting On Progress In Class

 Dear Dr.Jones, 

            I'm happy to say that I've been really enjoying LTED 618. I think that with the primary focus so far around literacy being about the oral language that taking a deeper dive into the written language part has been a refreshing change. The structure of the course isn't anything I expected it to be, class seems to be more set up in a workshop way than the traditional lecture followed by assignment. I will say there are parts that it has taken me a minute to grasp, such as the tracking of the writing process. I find this particularly interesting, I wonder if it's because I don't have any memory of tracking my writing in elementary school, or have a harder time separating the different parts of the writing process. It's almost as if when I'm in class I'm back in the position of a student in elementary school completing a writing project. I personally like that we're relearning the writing process through the shoes of a student in grade school. I think it allows for me to gain perspective of what thoughts might be going through students head during this process that are going through mine. As well as the hands-on aspect,  assist in figuring out what are strategies that I'm using that will be helpful to my students one day.

            There are a couple of learning activities/instructional strategies that I've learned during this course already, that I can see will be beneficial to my work as a teacher of literacy. One of the biggest things I've learned is the importance of using mentor texts, and how helpful they can be to our students writing. When you start a new writing piece with your students in class, bringing mentor text in for your students to do a book walk with to look at how the writing is structured, or do 2-3 minute readings of, to listen to how that genre might sound like when written. This in my opinion provides students with a great example, and they can pick up on some of the important features and ideas of the genre. I also really have thought about and would like to include strategy's like the card strategy lesson. I've learned that using writing as a way to brainstorm is a really important part of writing. The card strategy allows for students to move their written brainstorms around to make sense to their thinking about how to write a piece, or what might be some great things to include. As a reader and writer myself, this course has let me learn that the writing process/reading process are parallel processes. I can now see when I'm reading how rereading a section of writing is like the editing stage of writing, because it's like you're rereading to see if the meaning makes sense to you, or clarify the big idea just like when you edit a written piece. 

        I  think moving forward my biggest challenge is differentiating the genre pieces project from the teaching the genre. I think that my brain just combines the two together, and then I get confused on what I should be focusing on during the writing portion of the asynchronous time. I think I might be able to improve this if I start to print the Moodle page for the week with the agendas it might be helpful to be able to easily go back and reread for clarity then trying to find it on Moodle again. 

                                                                                    Best Regards,                                                                  

                                                                                            Marissa Towers  

            

    

ENTRY #5: Reflecting on the Card Strategy

 When I first read about the Card Strategy lesson in Kucer and Rhodes article Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with language, I had struggled to really understand how effective this strategy could be. When I brainstorm about topics I want to write about, I typically on a graphic organizer would think of the general topic and then branch off into 2-3 smaller sections that has a relevance to the purpose of the main topic. Brainstorming on what to write was never really a creative/fun process for me, it was more of a "this is what you have to do, so pick a topic and start writing about it". When I got to actually participate in the card strategy in class, I felt like I gained a greater perspective and understanding of how this can be a great tool for our students to use writing as a way to think. When reflecting on the experience, through this strategy it allowed for me to see an abundance of ideas that I could talk about in my writing that had to do with my topic. I think the most important part of this kind of brainstorming is that it's very visual and manipulative. There is a-lot of movement of cards and rearranging of what I thought had the most relevance to my topic. For students this is great because their brains are always moving and sometimes you can't always move the ideas on the page around as fast as your brain is thinking. 

I think another really effective part of this card strategy is having a peer rearrange your subtopics in an order that makes sense to them. When my partner was doing this for me I discovered another perspective of how I could talk about my subtopics, this allowed for me to think about my writing in a new way and grow more ideas. As Kucer and Rhodes state the strategy during this part students are "amazed that their meanings can be structured in a variety of ways...builds flexibility with the writing process and gives the students access to a variety of options" (1986, p.191). I would love to use the card strategy some day in my own classroom to help students in the writing process. I think that the more hands on we can make the writing process for our students the more they're going to enjoy the process and grow their ideas. The lesson card strategy allows for students to be collaborative by sharing their ideas with peers, be hands-on in moving ideas around, not being limited to the amount of subtopics they make cards for, and gain perspective on a variety of ways their ideas can be arranged. This process doesn't box the student in to writing a certain way or order but provides discovers, "Spencer didn't use the cards as a restraint or a rigid outline; as he wrote he discovered and included a major new ideas" (Kucer & Rhodes, 1986, p.191). In the future I will be using this writing to think strategy to engage my students in the writing process.

References

Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986). Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with language.                           The Reading Teacher, 40(2), 186-193

ENTRY #4: Writing To Think

 In my days of being in school a-lot of the writing that I had done explored my thinking process in different ways. When I think of writing to think, I think of open ended questions, brainstorm sessions and journaling. However there are many more ways that writing can be used to think. In Tompkins (2012) chapter 2, he presents several cognitive strategies that can be used to help students write to think. When I was reading about the different strategies, I felt that most commonly I have used and been asked to the strategies regarding organizing and questioning. 

When writing any kind of paper or creating a research project on a topic, the first thing that I was always asked to do before starting to write was to think about what information is so important to my topic that it's going to have to be included, what information do I think isn't going to make it, or have little relevance. I would decide this by creating a graphic organizer or outline and thinking about where to place the pieces of my writing. The majority of this process was filled with eraser marks and scribbles, it took time to place everything to make a cohesive outline for my paper in order to be prepared to write. The process of using organization writing to think is used at different stages of writing as well. Tompkins (2012) states that although organizing is usually a prewriting strategy "... students also use the strategy during the drafting and revising stages: If their organizational plan isn't working during drafting..." (p. 40). I think that sometimes we forget that although theres a writing process, the strategies can be interchanged with different stages. I know that sometimes my prewriting hasn't always fit the prompt that I was writing about, or my thinking hadn't been completed to help the reader. I have gone back to the drawing board and used writing again to think about how I can rearrange my ideas to make sense to my reader. It's rare you hit the bullseye the first time, you really want to be able to show by the end that you've gone through a tremendous process of altering and thinking to get a writing that you're truly happy with.  

In my opening sentences of this blog I had mentioned that one of my initial thoughts when it comes to writing to think was open ended questions. Tompkins had altered my perspective of questioning as I read chapter 2. I didn't realize when I had mentioned open ended questions that is coming more from a readers perspective of answering an open ended question to think about the writing. Whereas Tompkins discusses questioning as throughout the writing process you're questioning the physical writing you've created, "students ask self-questions to guide their thinking during writing. They construct questions such as 'Am I ready to begin drafting?' and 'Should I move this part?'"(p.41). I really think that the mini-lesson on p.42 has helped me understand how it can be used in the classroom. It's important that the students know what and how questioning is used during writing, providing examples. As a teacher I think before my students use this strategy I would want as a class to create an anchor chart that held possible questions we should be asking ourselves while we're writing. I believe that some of the questioning does come naturally for some kids, or at least some questions. I was the kid that would have a full on conversation with myself while rereading my writing to verbally talk through it and try to see if what I'm saying is going to make sense to my reader, that would include questions. I really am excited to be able to explore more the use/strategies of other ways that we can use writing to think.   

ENTRY #3 Enhancing Instruction for Students

 As a soon to be teacher I believe it's our job to keep making changes and updating our instruction for our students to benefit from. Frequently teachers get caught up in what they're comfortable with, or what has been working for them for years. If we aren't changing with the times we aren't helping our students evolve and grow to their full potential. When I was reading Tompkins I saw a few craft lessons that I thought would be great for teaching future 3rd graders. When I was working in a 3rd grade classroom as a sub one day, I had realized that the students were good at creating a story that had a beginning, middle and end. However, the students weren't connecting their sentences which off set the flow of the story. The majority of the sentences started with the characters name for example, "Nana went to the grocery store and they were out of muffins. Nana went to a bakery to get muffins there." I would make time as a teacher, knowing that this is a struggle in many kids writing, not just 3rd graders to spend time teaching transitional words. Tompkins says that teaching kids transition words helps students to "keep the sentence-to-sentence rhythm going in their writing." (2012, p. 75). I want to note here however that I would focus more on the ones that aren't as popular such as "besides", "meanwhile", "therefore". I think kids over use the ones they're taught to use to tell a story in 1st grade such as, "first", "second", "next" etc. Tompkins offers a mentor text "Suddenly! A Preston Pig Story", where students can investigate with putting other transition words in for the word "Suddenly" that is overused. I would love to try this one day with students! 

If I taught a younger grade, In the Richards and Hawkes (2011) article they also talk about transition mini-lessons using a different mentor text, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. I think this just shows the importance of discussing effective transition words with your students and how mentor texts help students greatly during instruction. Richards and Hawkes offer a bunch of mini-lessons that help with word choice which is something I really believe is key in great writing. I really like "What words or phrases grab your attention", and "How does the author's words help you develop sensory images" (2011, p. 371). There are a lot of other great word choice lessons that caught my eye as well. When I was in my clinical the reading specialist I was working with, in her room had on her bulletin board a grave yard, and in the graveyard were "dead" words. The students knew that in their writing if they wrote one of the dead words to go back and find a better word choice. I think that this is definitely something I'd like to have in my classroom as a support to word choice mini lesson. With the combination of mentor texts, supporting word choice walls, to go with the mini lesson I think that my students will be successful. Mentor texts allow for young writers to have a positive example of what good writing looks like in an interactive way where they're both engaging with the text and learning the skill to incorporate into their own writing. 

References

Rickards, D. & Hawes, S. (2006). Connecting reading and writing through author's craft. The          Reading Teacher, 60(4), 370-373.