Haley Mayer

Writing Unit

04/27/2015

Purpose: Character Perspective & Voice

Grade Level: 2

Standards:

W.2.3

Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure

CLL Goals:

Acknowledge differences in the points of view of Voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud

Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media

Write narratives in which they recount a well elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.

Mentor texts:

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by, Judith Viorst

Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude by, Kevin O’Malley

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by, Jon Scieszka

Day 1

Topic: Introduction to voice and creating character voice

Mentor Text: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by, Judith Viorst

Teacher Action:

Read aloud Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Stop on pg. 12 (Alexander is at lunch- looks miserable). Asks questions pertaining to Alex such as:

o “How would you describe Alexander/his personality?” (sad, bad luck, miserable,

o “How does the author show Alexander’s emotion by her word choice?”o “If I didn’t show you the pictures as I read, do you think you still could have

pictured Alexander and his expressions/the story?” Finish reading the mentor text. Explain “voice” to students and the relationship to characteristics of the

characters. (Voice is the author’s way of showing each character’s thoughts, emotions, and personality. Writers use voice to emphasize a character’s perspective or personality. What do you think it means to write with voice? (listen to a few responses) What ways did Judith Viorst give Alexander voice? What emotions did Alexander show by his words in the story? How would this story have been different if the author didn’t write the way she did/write with a specific voice?)

Think, pair, share- Make a list of the characteristics of writing that indicate a strong voice on a poster in front of the whole group. (Possible examples- shows writer’s personality, sounds different from other authors, shows feelings and emotions of characters, words come to life, shows heart of the story)

Tell students you will make this a checklist for them to use with their own writing so they can use it to monitor the voice in their stories.

Tell students that in the next lesson they will practice using voice for different types of emotions.

Student Action:

Listen to read aloud, participate in discussion questions. Think, pair, share during discussion after read aloud (voice checklist)

Differentiation:

Students will be working as a whole group to develop the checklist and listen to the read aloud. Students could be sat in the front or at a desk if needed.

Day 2

Topic: Creating voice and conveying emotion

Teacher Action:

Review Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Ask students what feelings were conveyed through the author’s writing for

Alexander’s character. (Miserable, bad luck, sad, depressed, mad, etc.)

Review the voice checklist that was created by the students in Day 1 and explain how they could use them for their writing in the next couple of days. Pass out a laminated copy for each student to use.

Group students into partner groups for the writing assignment. Pass out one-half sheet of paper to each group and one strip with a given

storyline on it. Each paper will have two different emotions on it that the student’s will use to write for a given storyline (sad, excited, nervous, happy, annoyed, miserable, tired, worried, etc.)

Next, give students 15-20 minutes to write two short stories using the given storyline and emotions being conveyed.

Teacher will participate and model/explain his/her own writing for the writing activity (example below).

Partners will then share their writing if they choose. Discuss how the different emotions were conveyed in each story. How did that

affect the story overall? Author’s use of words? Character development?

Student Action:

Students will participate in discussion questions and review of mentor text. Students be partnered up and together will write 2 stories (1 for each emotion)

given a storyline for 15-20 minutes (using voice checklist). Students will then discuss and critique teacher’s model of writing and share their

own if they choose

Differentiation

Teacher will pair students up based on ability Teacher will also provide additional assistance individually if needed Students may receive storyline and emotions based on ability

Teacher Model/Example

Two emotions- furious, excited

Storyline- a man went to the grocery store, but they were out of milk

Furious:

A man named Marcel was going to the grocery store after work one day. He needed milk, eggs, and bread so he could make breakfast for dinner. When he got to the store, he noticed a big truck in the parking lot that many people were gathering around. He asked a person standing by the back door, “What’s going on?” The guy said the driver locked the keys in the car and can’t unload the back.” “Whoops, that’s not good for him!” thought Marcel. He continued into the grocery store and picked up the eggs and the bread. Next, he went to the milk isle, but to his surprise, all of the milk was gone! Marcel was confused. “How could all of the milk be gone?” he thought. Then he remembered the truck parked outside was that of Anderson Erickson. The milk is in the

back! He was so frustrated that he even peaked into the back hallways to find any bottle of milk. He needed it for his breakfast. Ugh! He was so mad! “Now, what am I going to make if I don’t’ have any milk?” He then decided that grilled cheese sounded good, but he needed cheese. Marcel walked over to the cheese isle and, oh my, what did he see? Nothing! The cheese was all gone too! He decided he needed to get into that truck. He walked back to the parking lot and picked up a huge rock. “No, stop!” yelled the police officer rolling down the window. “I need milk! Let me in!” Marcel yelled back. “It’s open, it’s open. Help yourself,” the police officer said back. “It’s ABOUT TIME.” Marcel angrily replied. He grabbed the milk and stomped all the way home.

Excited:

A man named Marcel was going to the grocery store after work one day. He had a great idea of what to make his sister for supper. She LOVED tomatoes, so he thought to make her favorite spaghetti and breadsticks. Marcel needed to get sauce, noodles, and breadsticks at the grocery store. He walked in and immediately was startled! Balloons were flying from the sky and paper confetti was falling on his head. “What is going on?” Marcel thought. “Congrats! You won the contest! You were the 1,0000th person to shop here today! Yippee!” the crowd yelled. Marcel instantly got excited and started jumping up and down. He won a trip to Italy, a year of supply of milk, and $10,000! “Wow, I’m not going to make my sister spaghetti tonight, I’ll take her to Italy for the real thing!” Marcel said aloud. He was so happy and anxious to get home to tell his sister the big surprise. The next day, Marcel and his sister flew to Italy and ate spaghetti every day!

During the model, the teacher will be able to highlight different features of the writing sample such as, font changes, dialogue, and word choice to make the author’s and character’s voices come alive.

Reflection of Writing Model

The model I created was actually more challenging than I had anticipated. It took me 3-4 minutes of brainstorming and thinking about what I wanted to write before I started any writing. I would assume students might need that much time or longer to think of ideas of their own writing for certain activities. Once I began to write, however, it seems like a simple task and wrote with ease. It is important to be mindful and remind yourself that second graders probably will not have that experience, especially on an open-task such as this one. If I were to change anything, I would modify the explanation of the activity to include more brainstorming time for the students and more structure to the storylines. Although open storylines would allow for more creativity and endless options to write, some students might find that task too daunting and become discouraged before even trying to write something. Overall, I enjoyed the activity and think it would be even more enjoyable working with a partner.

Day 3

Topic: Creating voice and different perspectives

Mentor Text: Once Upon A Cool Motorcycle Dude by, Kevin O’Malley

Teacher Action:

Remind students how good writers use voice to define and distinguish characters in their writing. Tell students you will read them a story, but you are not going to show them any of the pictures. “I want you to think about the words the author is using and picture the characters in your mind”

Read Once Upon A Cool Motorcycle Dude aloud to the students. Do not show students any of the pictures.

Stop halfway through (the page after the boy tells his side of the story). Ask the students to describe characteristics of the characters that they pictured in

their mind. Write them on a poster. (How did you know which character was the one “talking”?)

Continue reading the story, but show the pictures this time. Ask students to discuss characteristics again- modify list if needed.

Discuss how the author used voice of each character to create the story. Explain how good writers can use voice to distinguish between two characters in a story.

Teacher will then have the students get out their writing notebooks. Tell students they will write their own ending to the story. The teacher will try to “guess” which character each student chose to write about when he/she reads the story endings later.

Remind students to use their checklist for voice.

Student Action:

Listen and participate in read aloud. Participate in discussion after the read aloud. Use writing notebooks to write an ending to the story on their own.

Differentiation

Students will receive individual assistance from the teacher if needed (small group or individual)

Students may be given writing prompts from the teacher Students will be placed in ability groups determined by the teacher

Day 4

Topic: Distinguishing and Analyzing Character Voice

Mentor: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by, Jon Scieszka

Teacher Action:

Have a few students retell the traditional story of the three little pigs and describe some characteristics of the pigs (nice, scared, harmless, etc.) and then the wolf (mean, scary, bad, etc.)

Read aloud The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. Stop after page 1. Ask the students questions pertaining to the voice of the book thus far “Who do you think is doing the “talking”? “How can you tell?”

Stop and discuss on the page after the wolf visits and sneezes at the first house. (“How would you describe the wolf in this story compared to the traditional story?” “Does giving a character a voice have an impact on the perspective of the story?” “How does it make the story more complete?”)

Continue to read the story Discussion after the story: Explain how good writers use voice to show an

opposite perspective of characters. “How does the author’s use of voice make you feel about the wolf?” “In what ways does the author convince you of the wolf’s story?” “How does the author’s use of humor, creativity, and/or persuasion in this story convince you of the wolf?”

Have student take out their writing journals and write about whether or not they believe the wolf. Remind them to use reasons pertaining to the author’s voice and perspectives.

Student Action:

Few students volunteer to retell the traditional story of the “3 little pigs” Listen to read aloud and participate in discussion questions Write in writing journals. Do they believe the wolf’s story or the traditional story?

Why or why not?

Differentiation

Students could work in small groups with the teacher for additional assistance Students may use a graphic organizer to produce writing prompt if needed (“I

believe the ________ wolf’s story because___________.”)

Day 5

Topic: Developing strong voice

Teacher Action:

Review The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs with students Ask for any volunteers to share writing from previous lesson Pair students in partner groups by ability

Students will choose a fairytale from a given list and write a new story from the perspective of one of the “bad” characters or a side character. (Example- from the perspective of the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood, or a stepsister from Cinderella, or Frog from The Frog Prince, etc.). Students will choose a unique voice for their chosen character and produce a writing sample to share with the class that mirrors or pulls ideas from The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs.

Remind students to use the voice checklist and to make their writing convincing. Teacher will pull a small group if needed or walk around classroom providing

additional assistance where needed.

Student Action:

Participate in discussion Volunteers will share writing from previous lesson Students will work in pairs/groups to write a traditional fairytale from a different

perspective/character

Day 6

Topic: Voice to establish personalities, emotions, differences

Teacher Action:

Review topics from all 5 previous lessons (character descriptions, voice) and talk about how good writers use voice to make their stories and characters come alive

Tell students they will write their own stories today choosing between a story from one perspective, between two characters, or an opposite perspective (just like the stories they read).

Writing prompts to choose from- (1) choose a main character from any story or movie, write a story using a strong voice from that character, (2) create a story using 3 animals and 1 different animal to replicate the story of the 3 little pigs, use strong voice so we can understand the personalities of the animals, (3) create two characters to write about, establish different perspectives and personalities through writing and voice of each character.

Remind students to use voice checklist to ensure strong voice is used in their writing. Also, mentor texts will be available to use for examples or brainstorming

Teacher will use rubric to assess student writing

Student Action:

Students will listen to teacher instruction Students will work independently to write their own stories Students will share stories at a later date

Differentiation

Students will be able to choose writing assignment Teacher may develop writing prompts for students struggling with ideas or the

writing process Teacher may model how to get started as a whole group

Assessment

Rubric for assessment of independent writing:

VOICE 1Needs

additional instruction/pr

actice

3Developing

skills

5Meets goals

and expectations

Comments Total

Character Development

(distinguishable voices,

personality, unique voice)

Undistinguish-able

character voices

Several similar or close voices used

for characters

Point of view is made clear by unique “voices”

given to characters

Word choice is lively, engaging,

expressive

No effort for word choice- very factual and bland

Some strong or interesting words

chosen

Reader can “see” or “feel” through word

choice Writer conveys

a message/feeling

No connection

from writer to reader- little honesty or

care put into writing

Slight connections

made between writer and reader-

Strong connection

between reader and writer.

Content/Ideas Did not follow instructions/prompts or did not finish in appropriate amount of

time

Followed most of the

prompts/directions

Followed all the prompts and

directions given

/15

Voice Checklist (example for students to use during writing time):

Strong Voice Necessities:

____ writer’s personality shines through

____ “sounds” different from everyone else’s

____ strong feelings and emotions from characters

____ unique/variety of word choice

____ writes from the heart

____ characters come to life

References:

Ideas pulled from:

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson1015/rubric.pdf

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/true-story-3-little-pigs-extension-activities

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/adding-strong-voice-your-writing

http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/writing/sixtrait/voice/rubric.html

http://writingfix.com/6_traits/voice.htm#mentor_text