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Foundations Study: Grade 3 47

Generating Topics: I Have an Idea for a Story 4

lesson

students’ learning objective

■■ Generate their own writing topics drawing on their experiences, thoughts, and feelings

students’ language objective

■■ State and discuss a writing topic using the sentence frame from Lesson 1:

– I have an idea for a story! It is about _______.

target words

■■ experience

■■ feelings

■■ knowledge

purpose

■■ Students should come to understand that writers get their ideas from a variety of sources. Students will continue to learn to borrow ideas from other writers and think about their own memories or life experiences to generate writing topics.

prep

■■ Think about your own stories and ideas that you want to share and record in your Writer’s Notebook.

■■ Decide what you need to say during your think-aloud so that students can understand how to tap into their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

opening

■■ Remind students that in an earlier lesson they:

– Used the book Tar Beach as an inspiration for writing

– Shared information about their favorite places

– Began to write in their Writer’s Notebooks about their favorite places

■■ Tell students that today they will learn another strategy for generating ideas to write about.

■■ Model how to think through possible writing topics. Tell students that writers write from their knowledge of the world—knowledge that comes from feelings, thoughts, and experiences. Because these are broad concepts, you will have to show students how you narrow their scope.

MATERIALS

■❑ Chart paper and markers

■❑ Sentence strips for the sentence frame and the workshop words

■❑ Chart:

– What Writers Write About

■❑ Writing Folders

■❑ Writer’s Notebooks

LANGUAGE CONNECTION

A cognate. If you have mostly Spanish-speaking ELLs, you can connect the English word experience to its cognate in Spanish, experiencia.

Writers Workshop48

Lesson 4 • Generating Topics: I Have an Idea for a Story

opening

continued

■■ On the “What Writers Write About” chart, list the word ”Feelings” and then ask students to think about the many kinds of feelings they might have. Ask them to turn and talk with a partner about those feelings. Ask them to share. Record these feelings on the chart.

■■ Choose one of the feelings and tell students a short story about it. You might say something like:

SAY “ Okay, so I know that writers can write about feelings. I remember a time when I was really happy. I remember when my mom gave me a surprise birthday party and I was so happy! So now I see that I can use my memories of feelings as a way to generate a new topic to write about. I am going to put this together with the sentence frame we used in Lesson 1 to talk about story ideas.

“ Here goes (hold up the sentence frame): ‘I have an idea for a story! It is about a happy memory from when I had a surprise birthday party!’”

■■ Continue the lesson in the same way using “experience” and “knowledge” as broad topics that you will ask students to describe for you. Introduce the broad topic, give an example, and ask students to think, turn, and talk. List the more specific topics on the chart and then put it all together using the sentence frame: “I have an idea for a story! It is about _______.”

■■ Before the work period, ask students to take a moment to decide what they will write about today. You might review the “What Writers Write About” chart. Once students have a topic for writing or know that they want to continue with a piece they have already started, send them to their seats to write. Any students who are still having difficulty finding a topic need to stay with you for help. They may need more think-aloud examples from you or you may need to use additional books as models to help them generate ideas.

work period

■■ Students should make a new entry in their Writer’s Notebooks, continuing with a piece they started earlier or drafting a new piece.

■■ Make sure students know to record their entries in their Writer’s Notebook table of contents.

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PEA

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G A

VIA

TOR

Foundations Study: Grade 3 49

Lesson 4 • Generating Topics: I Have an Idea for a Story

NOTE TO TEACHER

Drawing is an option. Early in the year, ELLs may need to draw their stories. If some of your ELL students are confident in telling their stories orally from their drawings, encourage them to participate in the author’s chair. This is an important part of their language development, and thus an important part of their writing development.

work period

continued

■■ Circulate to make sure that all students are selecting topics and writing. At this point, some students will be eager to write, while others are likely to need more encouragement or instruction; they may need to tell stories orally with a partner before writing.

■■ Identify three or four students who successfully chose a topic and spent time writing to share in the author’s chair, during the closing meeting.

closing

■■ Bring students back to the whole-class meeting area. Have three or four students share how they first chose their topic for writing, and then let them share their piece. It is important during this first week that students are sharing their processes for choosing writing topics as well as their writing so that other students can learn from their examples.