How-to+Writing

TEKS:

Week One: Intro and modeling (science fair project write-up) and volcano how-to writeup Week Two: Students write up science fair projects or a math problem solving strategy

Day One : Introducing Procedural Texts: When and why do we use it?

1. Arrange the students in groups of 4 or five. Pass out an example of directions, a recipe, board game instructions, etc to each group. Ask the students to look over the paper and notice characteristics of it. Give the students about three minutes to look over the papers and make some observations. Students can record their observations in their writers' notebooks or on notebook paper. 2. Ask students to share out their observations. What things did they notice about the way the writing on the papers are written? Post their responses on chart paper or on the board. 3. Rotate the examples from table to table so that each group can look at and observe each type of text. Do they notice any similarities? 4. After each group has observed all texts, ask what do all of the texts have in common? What is similar? What is different? 5. Ask students what type of materials they are looking at. They hopefully will respond with the appropriate type of material (instructions, recipe, etc.) 6. Gather students on the floor in your reading area. Explain to students that we use directions everyday is some aspect of our lives. Ask students for examples of how they follow directions during their day. Chart responses. Responses could include following parents' directions for cleaning the house, doing chores, getting ready for school, etc. They may read directions on a video game or board game. If students like to make crafts, or build things out of legos or blocks, sometimes there are directions on how to make these things. 7. Explain to students that this week they will be writing their own set of directions for an audience to follow. Directions aren't always written in a 1, 2, 3, 4 format. Students need to notice that sometimes directions are written sequentially (first, next, last) or like in a recipe, written in blocks with spaces between paragraphs of text. 8. Discuss the importance of audience. How would you write if you were writing directions for an adult? What about to a first-grader? 9. Ask students to think about what they are good at. What could they teach someone how to do? How would they do it?
 * Mini-lesson (20 min)**
 * Being able to effectively explain how to do something is an important skill for students to learn. You must be specific!
 * Procedural writing is a genre of writing in and of itself. It is important for us to value this skill and allow students time to practice writing this genre.

Day Two: Continue exploring different types of procedural writing Give students more time to examine all the different types of writing- look at recipes, game instructions, read the science books Have students write their noticings in their Reader Response Notebooks -What is the format of the text? -What words are used? Do some texts use steps (1. 2. 3)? Do all of them use steps? Do some use transition words (first, second, last)?

Day Three: Model Science Fair Write-up

Use this time to model how you would write up your science fair project for the Science Fair. Because this is writing up a scientific experiment, it is basically following the scientific method. This is just showing students how to organize a project and lay it out into manageable steps.

Make sure you include the following elements:

Brief introduction explaining the task at hand The Task to be completed or question to be answered Materials you will need Steps to follow (include setting up the experiment, gathering data, and analyzing data) A brief conclusion stating how you should get results

Be sure to model explicitly and remind students of what procedural texts look like

FOR HOMEWORK: Ask students to look online at home for directions on how to make a volcano. They can use any resources available. Amber and I will be looking for a paper copy of directions if students are not able to find anything or do not have internet access at home. Have students bring in the directions to use in class on Thurs.

Days Three and Four: Close Study- Students will closely examine the how-to make a volcano directions and take notes of what they notice about it Students will write up how to make a volcano based on the modeling you did yesterday. Because we want this to be something the students do for themselves, we want them to re-write the steps in their own words. This will help reinforce the steps and give them practice writing procedrual texts in a non-threatening way.

Students can take two days to finish this. They will NOT actually make the volcano in class... they are just writing it up! All volcano-making will be taken care of OUTSIDE of class!

Week Two:

Day One : Model procedural texts using a math problem.

Explain to students that we use directions and how-to writing in all aspects of our lives. We do not use them just for learning how to build or make things, but also how to solve things- like math problems. Ask students to imagine that they had to explain how to solve a math problem to a friend who needs help and does not know where to start. How would they start? Explain that you will model how to start this process. Write the process you go through on chart paper. You can do this using steps (1. 2. 3.) or in narrative form. It's important for students to understand that writing out steps is not the only form of procedural writing.

Here is the problem to use as an example: Sally has four cookies and she gave away two. How many does she have left?

First, we need to look at the task, which in this case is our problem: Say, "I know that this is my problem, so I am going to write this down. I am going to write on my paper: Problem: How many cookies does Sandy have left? I now know that my task is to find out how many cookies Sandy has left." Sally has four cookies and she gave away two. How many does she have left? What do we need to do first? Well, we need to figure out what we are solivng- what is the problem exactly? Our problem, or what we are trying to find out is: How many does she (Sandy) have left? Write on chart paper Next, we need to figure out how we are going to start. Do we need any materials? For this problem, we only need our brain. We can use our brain to figure out how to solve the problem. Then, we need to think about what information we know that can help us solve the problem. We know that Sally has four cookies. I'm going to draw a picture of that... on and on. Write which problem-solving strategy you will use to help you solve the problem. Continue writing out the steps you would follow to solve the math problem. Be sure to add a step that says to check your work!

1. Read the problem. 2. Understand the problem- read the problem again to find out exactly what the question/problem is. 3. Write out the problem: How many cookies does Sally have left over? 4. Find the information we need to solve: How many cookies Sally started with and how many she gave away. 5. Write the information we need down: Sally started with 4 cookies, and she gave away 2. 6. Decide how to solve the problem. Look for clue words

Tuesday-Friday: Students will choose a math problem they would like to solve. They can choose from the following problems, or you can create your own you would like them to solve:

a. There are 180 students in the third grade and 9 classes. If each class has the same number of students, how many students are in each class? b. Ms. has 60 pieces of candy to give out. There are 22 children in the class. If every student receives the same number of pieces, how many pieces of candy will each student get?

Assessment: Use the following rubric as a guideline to grade their writeups: [|Problem-Solving Rubric]

Now that students have had exposure to the genre of how to, they will begin expand on their topic they chose from the previous day. Students can use the "how-to" writing plan sheet to organize their ideas.

To begin their plan sheet, the student must write their topic. How to:___. Then, they need to choose an audience. Just as game directions are written for the particular audience (children, adults, etc.) their directions must be as well. Who are they targeting with their directions? Who would most likely want to learn how to do their particular thing?

Also, what materials are needed? If you are building a lego house, you will need legos. If you are explaining how to sew, you will need a needle and thread, or whatever other materials you need to sew.

After deciding those initial things, they must begin planning their directions. First, students need some sort of introduction describing their task. What is the task? Why is it important to learn? For example, if the student was explaining how to build a lego house, they might begin:

"Have you ever wondered how to build a Lego house? If so, read on! It's easy! Just follow my simple directions below, and you will be an expert in now time!"

After filling in the steps, students will write a conclusion. For example: "Now that you know how to build a Lego house, you can amaze your family and friends! Have fun!"

Students need to sum their directions up in some way- just a short, quick sentence.

After students fill in their plan sheet, they will begin composing a draft.

Day Three : Students start writing directions for earthquake and glacier Students will finish writing their drafts. One they have finished, they will find a partner who is also finished to trade papers with. The students should be able to read the directions all the way through to accomplish the task written about. If the partner is not able to do this, the writer needs to revise their work. Someone should be able to go from not knowing how to do something at all to knowing how. Once revisions are made, have the student try their directions out with a different partner. The second partner should be able to accomplish the task by themselves now.

Day Four: Students publish their directions for their project. They can decorate around their directions if they would like. You can have students write their directions on notebook paper and then glue iton a sheet of white paper and decorate around it. Have examples readily available for students to look at (game directions, recipes, etc.) to notice how they look. It needs to be appealing and look interesting!