Writer’s Craft Notebooks Analyzing Author’s Craft to Enhance My Craft

1. Writer’s Craft NotebooksAnalyzing Author’s Craft to Enhance My Craft presented by Catherine D’Aoust July 3, 2014

3. Ongoing grammar question: To teach grammar or not to teach grammar?

4. * Teachers today do not question if grammar should be taught because the standards require grammar instruction.CCSS Language Standards!!!

5. , Inquiring Minds want to know • Does the research support teaching grammar traditionally? - NO! “…in view of the widespread agreement of research studies based upon many types of students and teachers, the conclusion can be stated in strong and unqualified terms: the teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing.” R.Braddock, R. Lloyd-Jones, L. Schoer Research in Written Composition, NCTE, 1963

6. “Those findings that report no correlation between the formal teaching of grammar and writing ability conclude only that grammar should not be taught in isolation, as an end in itself. They do not conclude that it should not be taught at all…Unfortunately, the result of the research has been to drive grammar instruction out of the composition classroom, rather than into it, where it belongs.” Martha Kolln Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects, 1991

7. Grammar Instructionin Meaningful, Productive Contexts opposed to Grammar Instruction in Isolation, often with drill and kill worksheets (sometimes called traditional grammar instruction)

8. What is instruction in meaningful contexts? • This instruction is incorporated into reading and writing • instruction in the classroom; grammar instruction • becomes a natural part of Analyzing Author’s Craft and • learning style while applying it to students’ own writing. • • Instruction is context-based and utilizes both didactic • and constructivist pedagogical strategies: • - Sometimes students just need directly to be taught • rules and how the English language works. • - They need continuous opportunities to apply what • they have learned to their own writing.

9. Grammar Instruction Should NOT be

10. Grammar Instruction is often Rapid Release

11. In some classrooms … TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY “I do it” Focus Lesson “You do it alone” Independent STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Better learning through structured teaching: A framework for the gradual release of responsibility. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

12. TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY “I do it” Focus Lesson Guided Instruction “We do it” “You do it together” Collaborative “You do it alone” Independent STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY A Model for Success for All Students Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Better learning through structured teaching: A framework for the gradual release of responsibility. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

13. Gradual Release Process • Focused, directed instruction with models • Guided, interactive first experiences • Collaborative practice for correction and further learning • Independent practice for attainment in meaningful contexts

14. Grammar Instruction is often Declarative Knowledge only highly abstract, without real application instead of Procedural Knowledge where students use new knowledge in real, meaning- ful contexts where they practice and improve

15. The goal of grammar instruction is to improve writing and speaking Grammar is often taught as if the goal was to acquire linguistic understanding of the English language.

16. CCSS excerpt on Language Standards Note on range and content of student language use: To be college and career ready in language, students must have firm control over the conventions of standard English. At the same time, they must come to appreciate that language is as at least as much a matter of craft as of rules and be able to choose words, syntax, and punctuation to express themselves and achieve particular functions and rhetorical effects. They must also have extensive vocabularies, built through reading and study, enabling them to comprehend complex texts and engage in purposeful writing about and conversations around content. They need to become skilled in determining or clarifying the meaning of words and phrases they encounter, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies to aid them. They must learn to see an individual word as part of a network of other words—words, for example, that have similar denotations but different connotations. The inclusion of Language standards in their own strand should not be taken as an indication that skills related to conventions, effective language use, and vocabulary are unimportant to reading, writing, speaking, and listening; indeed, they are inseparable from such contexts.

17. Grammar Research Writing as a decision-making activity

18. Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language Conventions of Standard English • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

19. Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language Knowledge of Language 3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

20. Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language Vocabulary acquisition and Use 4.Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate 5.Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.6.Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

21. Constance Weaver Harry Noden Jeff Anderson 2005 1979 1999

22. Grammar Research says… • Constance Weaver (2007) explains, “Grammar taught in isolation from writing does not produce significant improvements in writing. It is both more motivating and more practical to teach selected aspects of grammar in conjunction with the writing process. (pg.8)” • “It is better to teach a few thingsrepeatedly and well than a lot of grammatical terms that have little or no practical relevance to writing.”

23. Improving Your Sentences with Brush Strokes Artist’s Palette

24. Harry Nodenfrom Image Grammar “Traditionally, the study of grammar has dealt only with words, phrases, and clauses. However, when I began to see grammar as a process of creating art, it seemed unnatural – even impossible – not to view grammar as a continuous spectrum in a whole work. As I explored this view with my students, the connection seemed to bring grammar into a meaningful relationship with stories, novels, screenplays, poems, reports, and songs – the ultimate products of the writer’s art.”

25. I’m a writer, not an artist…right? • “The writer is an artist, painting images of life with specific and identifiable brush strokes, images as realistic as Wyeth and as abstract as Picasso.” • “Writing is not constructed merely from experiences, information, characters or plots, but from fundamental artistic elements of grammar.” -Harry Noden, Image Grammar

26. Table of Contents: Image Grammar

27. What are brush strokes? • Comparison of writing to painting - Use of a palette of words and combination of words • Variety of strokes – sentence structures • Choices determined by artist’s purpose and audience • Drafting and adding color/shading

28. What brush strokes? • A writer’s brush strokes are their repertoire of sentence structures combine with their word choices. Students can begin with these five basic brush strokes: • Action verbs • Adjectives out of order • Appositives • Participle used as adjectives e) Absolutes

29. Professional authors use these tools to create masterpieces “Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully, he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than a minute, watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved.” -Ernest Hemingway Old Man and the Sea “Dazed and disoriented, I looked up from the bright red blood pulsing out of my arm—into the fevered eyes of the six suddenly ravenous vampires.” -Stephanie Meyer New Moon

30. Brush Stroke ProcessImitation Writing • Choose a brush stroke • Show a picture • Model the brush stroke • Show a 2nd picture (GRR) • Student(s) practice • Students use brush stroke in their writing

31. Adjectives Out of Order • The leopard hung on the tree branch. The leopard, hungry and vigilant, hung on the tree branch.

32. You try using adjectives out of order.

33. Painting with Participles Gorilla: Peering at the onlookers, the gorilla passed hour after hour in his depressing cage.

34. Painting with Participles Gorilla: Peering at the onlookers,slumping forward,staring dejectedly, the gorilla passed hour after hour in his depressing cage.

35. Painting with Participles Gorilla: Bored by his surroundings, the gorilla passed hour after hour in his depressing cage.

36. Painting with Participles Killer Whale: Now you try:

37. Example [Note the lack of sentence variation]

38. Final words from Harry Noden: “The writer is an artist, painting images of life with specific and identifiable brush strokes.” “Writing is not constructed merely from experiences, information, characters, and plots, but from fundamental artistic elements of grammar.”

39. My Concerns • How do we ensure transfer? • Where is accountability in grammar instruction? • What does practice look like? • How do we add the meta-lens?

40. Thus the Author’s Craft Notebook was born!

41. Components of Author’s Craft Journal • Ongoing journal used as an opening writing activity, a writer’s workshop journal, an anchor writing journal, or even a homework journal. • Builds on student memories ( small r research) • Utilizes all CCSS genres • Provides models of grammatical structures and punctuation usage; requires student imitation writing in real contexts • Provides a place for students to practice and explicitly integrate new learnings • Holds students accountable • Fosters transfer to other writing

42. Anchor Journal Content • Journal Cover • Numbered blueprint • I remember poem • Table of Contents • Student writing with annotations • Acknowledgment section

44. I Remember Poem I remember when • … 2. … • … 4. … 5. … 6. …

45. I Remember Poem I remember when 1. … I came home from school and saw my baby sister for the first time. 2. …playing ghosts in the dark hallway with pillows • …listening through the hallway furnace to my parents’ parties 4. … 5. … 6. …

46. Table of Contents • 1. Ghosts in the Hall • 2. Adult Parties

47. Students Write • Students choose their topics from their I Remember Poem.

48. Analyzing Author’s Craft • How the Notebook title was named!

49. Sample Excerpt from Of Mice and Men

50. A tall man stood in the doorway. He held a crushed Stetson hat under his arm while he combed his long, black, damp hair straight back. Like the others, he wore blue jeans and a short denim jacket. When he had finished combining his hair, he moved into the room and he moved with a majesty only achieved by royalty and master craftsmen. He was a jerk line skinner, the prince of the ranch, capable of driving ten, sixteen, even twenty mules with a single line to the leaders. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their actions as those of a temple dancer.