Today’s visiting writer at the San Antonio Writing Project was local writing teacher guru, Gretchen Bernabei.
Here are my notes from her time with us.
A lesson learned from Barry Lane: Go in the back door using humor or something surprising and new.
Kids learn so much better from each other than they ever learn from us; the things they learn sitting in rows are the things they learn one day and forget the next day. ~Frank Smith, The Book of Learning and Forgetting
Dogberry logic (from Much Ado About Nothing)
Students have trouble with transitions/transitional phrases; they sometimes go back and add transitions like sprinkling salt and pepper
Students often get in trouble with repetition
Why should we not get rid of football?
Three reasons: first, it’s popular; second, everybody likes it; third, everybody goes to the games.
Theme song for TV western: “Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp, brave, courageous, and bold”
What do we know about Wyatt Earp?—three things?—what does each mean?—all the same thing
Go to classroom library, pick a book like The Hobbit with unfamiliar/unusual character names.
Choose a name; male or female?; what is a character trait you would not want in a friend?
Write one sentence that says the same thing without using any of the words in the original.
Repeat. Do it together as a group on the board if needed.
Need to end up with five different sentences that all say the same thing.
Then, out in the left-hand margin next to the 2nd-5th sentences, write: also, furthermore, in addition, and in conclusion
Student example on the board:
Sky D is dishonest.
That girl with the hippie sounding name can’t be trusted.
Sometimes I catch that chick stealing.
Look up liar in the dictionary, and you’ll see her picture.
I just found out my “friend” over there in the tye-died T-shirt has been telling lies and stealing from me.
These paragraphs spin their wheels, they don’t have sentence-to-sentence progression from one idea to the next.
Draw a line under your paragraph.
Start a new version with the same first line.
Pretend that you know Sky D.
For the next sentence, tell one thing that you saw Sky D do that was dishonest.
Start the next sentence with, “When asked why she behaves in this manner . . .”
Start the next sentence with “Gradually, . . .”
Start the last sentence with “To this day, . . ”
Sky D is dishonest. She has been telling her mom she is at the library studying, when she is really at the mall with her boyfriend. When I asked her why she behaves in this manner, she told me her mom is too strict with her and that’s the only way she can see her ‘true love.’ Gradually, her lies have gotten more and more frequent and outlandish. To this day, her mom naively thinks she is going to basketball practice and doing community service at a nursing home when she is really making out with her boyfriend.
Providing the transition words was like the passenger reaching out and pulling on the wheel as you were driving/writing. That’s what transitions do; they drive the direction of the writing.
Transition words came from 10th Grade Score Point 4 essay by Elisa Leal on Gretchen’s Trail of Breadcrumbs website
The five-paragraph essay keeps re-emerging in schools, like trick birthday candles, because we need something concrete we can teach kids to do. ~Thomas Newkirk, The School Essay Manifesto
There is no expository piece that follows just one structure; we mix the modes together. ~Harvey Daniels
See Tom Romano’s article about multigenre writing in Teaching the Neglected “R”
Kernel essays following various text structures: an essay should track the movement of your mind, take the reader along the trail of your thoughts, trace the path of your thinking
Two hands: what you know and how you know it
Persuasive mix and match activity: spinner with different ways of knowing things; pick a truism out of a bag
Bakhtin: about 50% of human discourse is people quoting other people
Persuasive writing: “It’s good! Good for you! Only $1.99!” can be used to argue anything
Sound effects on The Good Writer’s Guide website; give writing assignment in conjunction with a sound
Challenge students to find their own sounds to add to their writing
Honor Moorman 