Expository Text: Teaching
students to explain, inform, argue, and
reflect
Michelle Fowler-Amato & Lynn Masterson
Heart of Texas Writing Project
August 10, 2011
Agenda
1.
Introductions
2.
Writing workshop and processes
3.
Writers’ notebooks
4.
Understandings of expository genres
5.
Reading in a genre: Models and strategies
6.
Writing in a genre
7.
For next time…
Introductions
Michelle
Lynn
Getting to know you
Name tent
School
Grade
Six-word Memoir
http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/
Capable Writers
Take a few minutes to list the attributes you
associate with a person who is a “capable”
writer.
What kind of classroom environment would
support the development of a capable writer?
English: What to Teach (Bomer, 2011)
Take a few minutes to look back through Chapter 1 of
Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms
to situate yourself back in the text.
Choose what you believe is the most important
sentence in the chapter. Write the sentence and page
number on a blank page in your writer’s notebook and
write about why you chose this sentence.
Then write a question you have about the text
Share with your table
Share whole group
A Class is an Organization of People
Independent work
Partnerships
Small Groups
What a Class Period Can Be
In a 50 minute period…
Mini-lesson (10 minutes)
Work time (30 minutes)
Sharing (10 minutes)
Other Possible Structures
Mentored Inquiry
Whole-class Discussion
Shared Aesthetic Experience
Essential Characteristics of a Writer’s
Workshop
Safe Environment
Encouraging risk taking
Clear guidelines for assessment
Choice
Choices about daily work in the workshop, content,
development, genre, form, publication
Time
Regularly scheduled writing time on a weekly basis
Talk
Interactions with teachers and peers about their writing
High Expectations
Everyone will write and everyone will publish
Teaching Organized for Writers
Writers’ Workshop
Over time in a writers’ workshop we
hope to see students developing:
A sense of self as writers, as well as a personal
writing process that works for them;
A way of reading the world like writers, collecting
ideas with variety, volume and thoughtfulness;
A sense of thoughtful, deliberate purpose about
their work as writers, and a willingness to linger
with those purposes;
As members of a responsive, literate community;
Ways of reading text like writers, developing a sense
of craft, genre and form in writing;
A sense of audience, and an understanding of how
to prepare writing to go into the world
Components of a Writer’s
Workshop
Focus Lessons/Mini Lessons
Procedural Lessons: important information about
how the workshop runs (how to get or use
materials, where to confer with a friends, etc).
Writing Process Lessons: strategies writers use to
help them choose, explore, or organize a topic
Qualities of Good Writing Lessons: information to
deepen a student’s understanding of literary
techniques: use of scenes, influence of point of
view, strong language, leads and endings, etc.
Editing Skills: information to develop their
understanding of spelling, punctuation and
grammatical skills
Components of a Writer’s
Workshop
Focus Lessons/ Mini Lessons
short, focused and direct
taught to a group of students or the whole class
topic varies according to the needs of the class
A mini lesson does not always direct the course of
action for the rest of the workshop. This is the time
to introduce an important skill but we shouldn’t
expect students to spend the next 40 minutes
practicing it. Teachers can direct student practice
during the mini lesson but when the lesson ends
students return to ongoing writing projects
Components of a Writer’s
Workshop
Independent Writing Time
Freewriting in a notebook to develop, play around
with, or extend ideas—use as a tool for thinking.
Writing Exercises
Reading to support writing
Staring off into space
Drafting, revising, or editing a writing project
Conferencing with teachers or peers
Publishing a writing project
Components of a Writer’s
Workshop
Sharing
A special time at the end of each workshop for
students to share writing with the whole class
Teacher coaches students how to give and receive
responses to each others writing
It is more than a celebration but also a time for
teaching
Teachers direct students to act in ways that will
help them when they are conferring one-on-one
with peers
Components of a Writer’s
Workshop
Conferencing
The majority of teaching takes place in the conference
Conferencing happens at all stages of the writing
process
Conferencing guides the types of minilessons included
in a unit of study
Focused Units of Study
Process
Living a writing life,
and getting and growing
ideas for writing
A writer’s work other
than writing: research,
observation, talk, etc.
An overview of the
process of writing
Revision
Editing
Using a notebook as a
tool to make writing
better
How writers have peer
conferences
How writing gets
published
Studying our histories
as writers
How to coauthor with
another writer
Focused Units of Study
Products
An overview of the kinds of writing that exist
General craft study: Looking closely at good writing
and naming the qualities we see
Specific craft study: Zooming in on some aspect of
craft-structure, punctuation, word choice, leads,
endings, paragraphing, descriptions, etc.
How to make illustrations work with text
Finding mentor authors for our writing
Specific genre study: specifically editorials, feature
articles, essays, reviews, etc.
Write Like a Teacher of
Writing
“We write so that we know what to teach about how
this writing work gets done. We write so that we know
what writers think about as they go through the
process. We write so that our curriculum knowledge of
the processes of writing runs deep and true in our
teaching. We write so that we can explain it all.”
-Katie Wood Ray
I am a writer who…
steals minutes to write -Kelly
tends to hide out in particular genres –Michelle
has a zillion things to say but won’t allow herself to
speak –Samantha
throws words on the page to see what sticks –Ann
must have colorful ink to compose with -Amber
I am a writer who…
Take a few minutes to think about your own writing
life.
When do you write?
Why do you write?
What do you need to write?
What do you do while in the process of writing?
I am a writer who…
Teaching From Our notebooks
“As teachers of writing, we spend time reading the texts
of our experiences as writers because the curriculum of
process (how it happens that someone gets writing work
done) is folded into the layers of meaning in these
texts.”
-Katie Wood Ray
Writers’ Notebooks: Tools for
Self-sponsored Thinking
“A writer’s notebook is meant to change the way the
user pays attention to the world. The writer notices
more because she has a notebook and a responsibility
to write in it. She has a problem to solve-what to put
in a notebook today-and the solution to that problem
involves tuning into her own thoughts-noticing when
she has them, becoming aware of their relationships,
and following them where they might lead.”
-Randy Bomer
Why Use a Notebook?
In a notebook, a writer might:
collect ideas, noticings, wonderings
gather information on a particular topic
respond to literature
try on language
Why Use a Notebook?
In a notebook, a writer might:
experiment with the arrangement of text
return to past entries to build on ideas
rehearse for crafted texts that are created for an
audience
reflect on processes
take notes on writing strategies or editing devices
Collecting in
notebook
Reflecting/selfassessing
Finding a topic
Publishing to
audience
Collecting around
topic
Editing/Clarifying
Envisioning text
Revising/Rethinking
Drafting rapidly
Choosing the Right Notebook
A notebook must meet the needs of the writer.
In choosing a notebook, a writer might consider:
the purpose of the notebook
the size
lines or no lines?
room to sketch?
Choosing the Right Notebook:
Turn and Talk
What type of notebook will work for you?
What type of notebook will work for your students?
Writers’ Notebooks in the
Classroom
When making use of writers’ notebooks, teachers
should plan to:
create space for students to write every day
teach stamina and concentration
confer with student writers, and make note of these
conversations
encourage variety
Finding that Balance
“A teacher has to establish a balance between (a) giving
students lots of space for decision making and (b)
providing enough support so that they don’t feel
abandoned and empty. That balance is crucial
throughout the teaching of notebooks, and the key is
to make students responsible for making decisions, but
to teach actively what they need to know to make good
decisions.”
-Randy Bomer
Classroom Reflection:
Turn and Talk
What role might writers’ notebooks play in your
classroom?
How will you go about providing students with the
tools to make “good” decisions?
Learning More About Writers’
Notebooks
To continue exploring the use of writers’ notebooks in the classroom,
check out:
Jeff Anderson’s Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and
Style into Writers’ Workshop
Randy Bomer’s Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle &
High School
Amy Buckner’s Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writers’ Notebook
Lucy Calkins’ Living Between the Lines
Ralph Fletcher’s A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You
Ralph Fletcher’s Breathing in Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer’s Notebooks
Writers’ Workshop Jig-Saw
Take 5 minutes to read the handout you received.
Each handout outlines one writing teacher’s thinking
about the use of writers’ notebooks.
On the top right corner of each handout is a sticker.
Find those who have the same sticker. Take turns
sharing what you learned from your reading.
What similarities do you notice? What differences do
you notice? What will you take and use in your own
classroom?
Expository Writing
“Problems make good subjects.”
-Donald Murray
Writing Break: Expository
Writing
What problem needs solving?
What situation needs correcting?
What issue needs explaining?
What phenomenon needs exploring?
What choice I’ve made/stand I’ve taken/personal
preference I’ve chosen needs to be understood by
others?
Classroom Reflection:
Turn and Talk
What does the reading and writing of expository text
look like in your classroom?
How do your students respond to reading and writing
expository texts?
Unmasking the World
“If they are to be empowered as serious participants in
a democracy, kids have to learn to explain what they
think, to argue their perspective, to inform others
about subjects in which they can claim their own
knowledge and authority. And if they are to be heeded
by real readers, young writers have to learn to write
well, engagingly and clearly in these crucial genres.”
~Randy Bomer
Living a Writer’s Life
While at lunch, try living like a writer.
Turn on your observation skills and jot down some
noticings in your notebook:
eavesdrop, collect images and wonderings.
Stir your memory.
fiction
nonfiction
fiction
nonfiction
Our focus is on the texts and how they are shaped
– not on what is real or not real
TEXT FORMS
narrative
expository
narrative
structured in time
expository
structured by category
Narrative
I still had a couple of hours to kill before meeting Alejandra. “I
might bring Ram. He might need it.” She’d told me all about
Ram’s brother, how he was brain-dead, how it happened, the
whole story. The whole thing made me sad. I thought of that day
at the cemetery. I thought of how I’d dropped him off at the
hospital. I thought of that sadness in his eyes. It felt like
something inside him had died or was dying. Something like
that. So what the hell did I have to be sad about? No one in my
house was dying. Not that we weren’t brain dead.
I took off in my car and found myself driving back home. Okay
so I was going back home. What was I going to do in the rain?
When I pulled up to the driveway, David’s car was sitting there.
You know, like it belonged.
Expository
In their quest to spread their seeds, plants have proved
endlessly adaptable. Some, such as dandelions, produce spores
that can fly miles on a puff of wind. Others, like coconuts,
have engineered seeds that can survive thousand-mile voyages at
sea. Some of the most remarkable seeds, however, are those
adapted to survive fires so intense they kill virtually everything
else in their path.
Many of the world's pine forests, for instance, grow in arid
climates, where a single flash of lightning can spark an inferno.
Trees that couldn't take the heat died out long ago. Those that
remain generate seeds that are fire-hardened better than any
high-security safe, able to protect their precious genetic cargo
from the heat.
Some functions of expository texts
To inform
To explain
To persuade
To reflect
To instruct or offer advice
information
•feature
articles
argument
•letters
•pamphlets
•editorials
reflection
•essays
explanation
•concept
papers
To instruct or
offer advice
•Consumer
reports
•Advice
columns
•Self-help books
•Guide books
Argument
Gather 'round children, and a true tale I'll tell, about
how privatization does not go well.
In the past decade or so, there has been a rush by
public officials to privatize government functions.
Corporations, they cried, can do any public job better and
cheaper. So, on that theoretical assumption, everything
from water systems to social services have been turned over
to corporations for their fun and profit. In case after case,
the profits came, but at the expense of the public, for the
corporations achieved their so-called "efficiencies" by
replacing experienced government employees with low-wage
workers and cutting service to the people.
Explanation
The word after "infinity" in my dictionary is "infirm," a definition of which is "weak of
mind." This is how many of us who are not mathematically inclined feel upon
contemplating infinity.
We feel weak because our finite minds can only go so far with the concept, and because
every time we think we're on the verge of securing even a shadowy understanding, we're
tripped up by something. A friend of mine once told me that trying to hold her
hyperactive toddler was like trying to hold a live salmon. Infinity is like that for us "infirm
ones": slippery as a salmon, forever eluding our grasp.
This is true no matter how you approach the concept. Many
of us might consider numbers the most sure-footed way to come within
sight of infinity, even if the mathematical notion of infinity is
something we'll never even remotely comprehend.
We may think, for starters, that we're well on our way to
getting a sense of infinity with the notion of no biggest number.
There's always an ever larger number, right? Well, no and yes.
Mathematicians tell us that any infinite set—anything with an infinite
number of things in it—is defined as something that we can add to
without increasing its size. The same holds true for subtraction,
multiplication, or division. Infinity minus 25 is still infinity; infinity
times infinity is—you got it—infinity. And yet, there is always an even
larger number: infinity plus 1 is not larger than infinity, but 2infinity is.
Reflection
I hate happiness. Particularly jocularity on demand. I have
always refused to smile on cue. When I was a child we posed
for family portraits at the local suburban shopping mall
photography studio. My grinning parents and cousins all
look like the typical middle class suburban family while the
expression on my face would suggest that I'm about to be
marched on a pogrom from our shtetl in Russia. I love
melancholic novels, depressed poets, and pessimistic
prognosticators. I like sad songs, weepy movies, I'm a
sentimental drunk. My idea of a good time is drinking a
double espresso while reading Death in Venice. Venice is my
idea of a rollicking good time town. I was never a waitress.
Not perky enough. I had just enough natural attitude
to work the door of a popular NY nightclub in the late
'80s. In fact, I probably turned you away, for no reason
at all, just because you really, really wanted to come in.
I was never a cheerleader, never an ingénue, never the
homecoming queen.
Feature Article – “Penny Dreadful”
Several years ago, Walter Luhrman, a metallurgist in
southern Ohio, discovered a copper deposit of tantalizing
richness. North America’s largest copper mine—a vast openpit complex in Arizona—usually has to process a ton of ore
in order to produce ten pounds of pure copper; Luhrman’s
mine, by contrast, yielded the same ten pounds from just
thirty or forty pounds of ore. Luhrman operated profitably
until mid-December, 2006, when the federal government
shut him down.
The copper deposit that Luhrman worked wasn’t in the
ground; it was in the storage vaults of Federal Reserve banks,
and, indirectly, in the piggy banks, coffee cans, automobile
ashtrays, and living-room upholstery of ordinary Americans. A
penny minted before 1982 is ninety-five per cent copper—
which, at recent prices, is approximately two and a half cents’
worth. Luhrman, who had previously owned a company that
refined gold and silver, devised a method of rapidly separating
pre-1982 pennies from more recent ones, which are ninetyseven and a half per cent zinc, a less valuable commodity. His
new company, Jackson Metals, bought truckloads of pennies
from the Federal Reserve, turned the copper ones into ingots,
and returned the zinc ones to circulation in cities where
pennies were scarce.
“Doing that prevented the U.S. Mint from having to make
more pennies,” Luhrman told me recently. “Isn’t that neat?”
The Mint didn’t think so; it issued a rule prohibiting the
melting or exportation of one-cent and five-cent coins.
(Nickels, despite their silvery appearance, are seventy-five per
cent copper.) Luhrman laid off most of his employees and
implemented his corporate Plan B: buying half-dollars from
banks and melting the silver ones (denominations greater
than five cents aren’t covered by the Mint’s rule); mining
Canadian five-cent coins (which were a hundred per cent
nickel most years from 1946 to 1981); and lobbying
Congress.
Luhrman’s experience highlights a growing conundrum for the Mint
and for U.S. taxpayers. Primarily because zinc, too, has soared in
value, producing a penny now costs about 1.7 cents. Since the Mint
currently manufactures more than seven billion pennies a year and
“sells” them to the Federal Reserve at their face value, the Treasury
incurs an annual penny deficit of about fifty million dollars—a
condition known in the coin world as “negative seigniorage.” The fact
that the Mint loses money on penny production annoys some people,
because one-cent coins no longer have much economic utility. More
than a few people, upon finding pennies in their pockets at the end
of the day, simply throw them away, and many don’t bother to pick
them up anymore when they see them lying on the ground. (Breaking
stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less
than the federal minimum wage.)
Advice
The Science of Intuition: An Eye-Opening Guide to Your Sixth Sense
Gut Feelings You may know what it's like to live on carrot sticks and rice
cakes. You may not know that eating intuitively—paying attention to your
inner satiety meter—is far more likely to lead to a healthy weight than dieting.
After assessing the eating habits of 1,260 female college students, Tracy
Tylka, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University,
found that those who relied on internal hunger and fullness cues to
determine when and how much to eat had a lower body mass index than
women who actively tried to control their weight through calorie restriction.
In another study, published in 2005 in The Journal of the American Dietetic
Association, women who practiced intuitive eating over the course of two
years maintained their weight and achieved lower cholesterol levels, lower
blood pressure, higher self-esteem, and greater levels of physical activity—
while women who dieted over the same period regained any weight they
managed to lose and experienced no improvements in their physical or
mental health.
Further research has shown that intuitive eaters are less likely
to think about how their body appears to others, and more likely
to spend time considering how their body feels and functions
Tune In: Becoming an intuitive eater requires the willingness to sit
and listen to your stomach's signals. Eat every three to four hours,
before extreme hunger sets in, and stop when you feel nourished
and energized, not stuffed. Imagining the portion you want to
consume before a meal—and what that will physically feel like
afterward—is another way to start trusting your gut. On The Nose
There's a reason we say that a bogus idea doesn't "pass the smell
test": Research suggests that our nose plays a major role in certain
of our judgments, even if we're not aware of the scents we're
detecting. In a recent Israeli study, men were asked to sniff a jar
containing either fresh women's tears or saline. The participants
who smelled tears rated photographs of women as less attractive,
and when the researchers tested the men's saliva, they discovered
lower levels of testosterone, which correlates with decreased
aggression. The scent of tears may have physiologically prompted
the men to be more nurturing and appeasing.
But scents don't just shape our impressions of a person; they
can sway our behavior as well. Research shows that particular
odors encourage shoppers to linger over a product and may
even make them willing to spend more money. In one study
carried out at a clothing store, the scent of vanilla doubled
the sales of women's clothes.
Tune In: While no one has found a way to increase the
number of receptors in the human nose, new research
suggests that smelling sweat (your own or someone else's)
may increase your nose's sensitivity (thanks to chemicals in
the steroids naturally produced by sweat glands). More
reason to get moving: Exercise itself temporarily improves
your olfactory sense, because adrenaline constricts blood
vessels in the nose, increasing nasal airflow. Smell receptors
that line the inside of your nose regenerate roughly every
three weeks, but if you live in an urban area, air pollution
can damage the receptors, meaning countryside vacations
may temporarily boost sniffing prowess.
Genre Exploration
•
Look through the variety of texts at your table.
•
With a partner, locate examples of the five (5)
expository genres we explored today and label each
with a sticky note.
Closing Reflection
Look back at your first response regarding
the “capable” writer.
Think about the conversations we had today
and add to your initial list of attributes.
Now look at your initial thoughts regarding
the type of classroom environment you
envisioned. Add or make revisions to the
types of learning experiences students will
need to become capable writers.
For Next Time…
Live a writer’s life: Collect in your notebook.
Read Chapter 11 (What is There to Teach About
Writing to Think?) in Building Adolescent Literacy in
Today’s English Classrooms.
Read Chapter 3 (Feature Article) in Thinking Through
Genre (This will be emailed to you).
Bring in examples of feature articles that might serve as
mentor texts for your students.