Morning Meeting I begin with a morning message. This is where I focus on conventions: phonics, capital letters, sentence structure, punctuation. Each day I ask, "What can you tell me about the print in this message?" Students take turns providing observations (which I circle or underline) and I, of course, gently guide them to the convention I most wanted to focus on that day. My messages are frequently stacked with digraphs, high-frequency words, question marks-whatever I think we need to take a closer look at next. The choices I make are directed by the students' readiness and an understanding of how young children come to understand print. (If you want to try teaching conventions in this manner but do not yet feel confident in sequencing phonemic elements, you might use a spelling textbook to help you determine which phoneme to focus on next.)
After morning message, I read a picture book-cover to cover without stopping-every day. Reading aloud is essential in every grade, but especially in the primary classroom. Not only do we need to provide students experience with texts, model reading strategies, and introduce new vocabulary, most of the qualities of fine writing-voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and (perhaps most surprisingly) organization-are best developed through reading aloud. Quite simply, the more you read to your students, the better writers they will become.
I allow the first reading to be nothing more than a joyful experience. I want my students to fall into the rhythm of the text, to visualize descriptions and events, to feel the pacing of the story or presentation as the author intended it. The exception might be when I ask students to make predictions or raise questions-strategies that must be modeled before the text has been revealed.
However, I do not randomly choose books to read during this time. The book I select to be read aloud on Monday is the book I will use as a mentor text on Tuesday or later in the week. For my mini-lesson (which immediately follows my read aloud), I pull out the book we've previously read. For example, I might reach for The Dirty Cowboy and as soon as the kids stop cheering, say, "Today I want us to look at the way author Amy Timberlake creates a movie in the mind of her readers." Why do the students cheer? Not only because The Dirty Cowboy is a lively, humorous story, but also because, having now experienced the fun of this story together, it is, quite frankly, theirs. The connection they've established with this work-a sense of ownership you might say-creates a predisposition to feel positively toward and engage in the mini-lesson.
In addition to using mentor texts, I model writing. We also write interactively, examine sample texts, and record our observations with the use of graphic organizers.
Keep this in mind: mini-lessons should have the tone of inquiry. Imagine you and your students are explorers of writing, and you won't go wrong. Don't have a mini-lesson for tomorrow? Go ahead and raise a question:
How do authors begin or end their stories?
How did the author organize this book?
How do authors make us want to turn the page?
In this story, what words jump off the page?
Why do you think the author chose this topic?
What do you think this author cares about?
Does this story make you think of one of your own?
Each morning we come together to make discoveries . . . to be a community of writers. Adapted from the upcoming study gudie for No More "I'm Done!" Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades by Jennifer Richard Jacobson |
for primary teachers
