I am currently taking the most wonderful Masters Class-Writing in the Primary Grades. This class focuses on The Writers Workshop and really utilizes a lot of Lucy Calkins Units of Study. It has been powerful so far, to say the least. As many of you know, I have been using Writers Workshop for the last two years in my classroom, but I had never been “officially” trained in it. I read multiple books, took a balanced literature class that touched on it, but never an official training…until now!
One of our assignments this summer was to read a professional book and present to the class one of the chapters. One area that I wanted to just know more about was beginnings and endings. I read the book, “Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K-6”by Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli.
This book really explores the importance of using literature and mentor texts to show students the experts using the craft you are teaching. Chapter 5 focuses on Beginnings and Endings. This is a MUST-HAVE book!!!
I currently teach kindergarten, but am moving up to 2nd grade next year. I was looking for some great 2nd great sites and came across yours. I'm so excited to read this post because I love Lucy Calkins and our reading teacher just gave me the book Mentor Texts to read this summer! I look forward to looking through all of your ideas!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh- I love this book! Mentor texts are so important! :) Thanks for sharing your blog link with me... I can't wait to explore it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I have the book you mentioned and also the Nonfiction Mentor Texts by the same authors. I am pulling them out now to put in my ever growing summer reading stack to review to strengthen my skills for teaching writing to my second graders. I will look forward to reading your good hooks document when you post it. : )
ReplyDeleteI have this book as well! I read it while taking a Masters class too. I think that this is such an important book for anyone doing Writer's Workshop in the classroom.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.storylineonline.net/
ReplyDeleteis the site you were looking for
Love this article!! I hope you will post more like this!
ReplyDeleteI sat in one of Lynn's workshops at a Best Practices seminar in January. I was FABULOUS!! She was FABULOUS!!! This is a must have book for sure. Thanks for sharing the article.
ReplyDeleteI meant it was fabulous... sry
ReplyDelete