Launching the Writing Workshop, Session 11
TAILORING YOUR TEACHING
If your students are new to timelines and tend to include too many items or too many
details . . . you could make and talk through a timeline of a class event like a birthday
celebration or trip. You can highlight the brevity of each label on the timeline and highlight also
that each dot represents a step forward in the sequence of events.
If your students have experience with timelines . . . you could show them how to angle the
timelines in ways that help to get to the heart of their story. Writers can make different timelines
of the same event, depending on what they decide they want to show. For example, if you
wanted to show that a class visitor was greatly anticipated, your timeline might start before the
visit and convey the class’ excitement—one dot might represent the narrator peeking into the
hall to see if the visitor was approaching yet. On the other hand, if you wanted to show that the
visitor brought odd animals with him, the timeline might start as the visitor entered the room
carrying a wriggling bundle.
If your students could use more support in using timelines effectively . . . you might create a
minilesson in which you ask children to join you in studying timelines that other children have
made, noticing their different choices and the effects these choices might have on the stories.
They might notice the following:
• Some label each dot with a word, some with a sentence
• Some are interesting just by themselves, some seem flat already
• Some start with a small event, some start broad
• Some have a lot of cross-outs, some are untouched
If your children already know how to make timelines and want other tools for planning
their narratives . . . you could teach them that writers keep in mind the kind-of-text-we’ll-bewriting, and use our knowledge of the genre in which we’re writing to help us prepare for
drafting. This means that when children know they’re writing narratives (or stories), it’s helpful
for them to think in advance about their setting, their characters, and their plot. Children can be
reminded to use all they know as readers of stories to guide them as they plan the stories they
will soon write.
If your students need help elaborating on each page of their drafting booklets…you might
demonstrate this to them starting with the class timeline. This time, write each dot item on a
separate page of chart paper and explain that each page is like a different page of the drafting
booklet. Then pick one dot and demonstrate elaborating on it. “Hmm, so we’re up to the part
where Lizzie and Joline heard a shriek. If I want to write with true, exact details, I could say,
“Lizzie and Joline were nearby, jumping rope and chanting in rhythm with the thud of the rope
hitting the ground when they heard an ear-splitting sound: someone was shrieking!”
If your students’ use of the timelines makes their writing like a list…You may want to show
them that one way to transition from the timeline to a draft is to freewrite off of a single dot
from the timeline. Teach them that when writers write first drafts we often begin with a
freewrite to get our thoughts down on the page. Show them how to do a freewrite with just one
dot on a timeline. Write one of the dots on the timeline of your story about rescuing a bee from
drowning in a mud puddle (you can substitute this with a story of your own) on a piece of chart
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paper and then write quickly, saying the words out loud as you write. Say, “I poked the bee
gently, but it didn’t budge. It kicked its legs frantically, thrashing about in the thick muddy
water. I moved the stick under the bee’s legs, and watched as it latched on. ‘Yeah!’ I shouted.
‘You can do it!’ The bee steadied itself and started climbing my stick.”
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