Teaching Evidence-Based Writing: Fiction: Texts and Lessons for Spot-On Writing About Reading

by Leslie A. Blauman

Overview

One in a million. Yes, that’s how rare it is to have so many write-about-reading strategies so beautifully put to use. Each year Leslie Blauman guides her students to become highly skilled at supporting their thinking about texts, and in Evidence-Based Writing: Fiction, she shares her win-win process. 

Leslie combed the ELA standards and all her favorite books and built a lesson structure you can use in two ways: with an entire text or with just the excerpts she’s included in the book. Addressing Evidence, Character, Theme, Point of View, Visuals, Words and Structure, each section includes:

Lessons you can use as teacher demonstrations or for guided practice, with Best the Test tips on how to authentically teach the skills that show up on exams with the texts you teach. 

Prompt Pages serve as handy references, giving students the key questions to ask themselves as they read any text and consider how an author’s meaning and structure combine.

Excerpts-to-Write About Pages feature carefully selected passages from novels, short stories, and picture books you already know and love and questions that require students to discover a text’s literal and deeper meanings. 

Write-About-Reading Templates scaffold students to think about a text efficiently by focusing on its critical literary elements or text structure demands and help them rehearse for more extensive responses.

Writing Tasks invite students to transform their notes into a more developed paragraph or essay with sufficiently challenging tasks geared for grades 6-8.

And best of all, your students gain a confidence in responding to complex texts and ideas that will serve them well in school, on tests, and in any situation when they are asked: What are you basing that on? Show me how you know. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506374307
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	09/19/2016
Series:	Corwin Literacy
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Leslie Blauman has been teaching reading and literacy in the Colorado public schools for over 30 years. Leslie’s classroom is a working model for child/staff development in reading, writing, and critical thinking. Partnering with the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC), her classroom is frequently the subject of professional workshops, classroom reading enhancement films, and education journals.  While she works with teachers and students in a majority of the states and internationally as a consultant, her heart is in the classroom and she brings this to both her writing and her consulting.  She speaks regularly at teacher/literacy conferences and workshops. 

Table of Contents

VIDEO CLIPS
WRITE-ABOUT-READING TEMPLATES
EXCERPTS TO WRITE ABOUT
DYNAMIC DUOS: ADDITIONAL IDEAS FOR TEACHING WITH THE TEXTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Section 1. Evidence
Lesson 1. Ask and Answer Questions
Write-About-Reading Template: Ask Questions
Excerpt to Write About: “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros
Lesson 2. Ask and Answer Questions Using Details
Write-About-Reading Template: Ask and Answer Questions
Excerpts to Write About: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Lesson 3. Use Details and Examples*
Write-About-Reading Template: Back Up Your Thinking
Excerpt to Write About: “Saturday at the Canal” by Gary Soto
Lesson 4. Quote From the Text*
Write-About-Reading Template: Question, Quote, Write!
Excerpt to Write About: The Giver by Lois Lowry
Lesson 5. Summarize in Literature
Write-About-Reading Template: Summary Planner
Excerpt to Write About: “The Mythical Story of Arachne” by Emma M. Firth
Lesson 6. Cite Evidence That Provides an Analysis*
Write-About-Reading Template: Cite Evidence Choice Board
Excerpts to Write About: “The Circuit” From The Circuit: Stories From the Life of a Migrant Child by Francisco Jimenez
Section 2. Relationships
Lesson 7. Describe Characters, Setting, and Sequence
Write-About-Reading Template: Look @ Literary Elements
Excerpt to Write About: “The Shepherd’s Mistake” posted by Brishti Bandyopadhyay in Folktales for Kids
Lesson 8. Follow Characters, Setting, and Sequence Over Time*
Write-About-Reading Template: Literary Elements Wheel
Excerpts to Write About: Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Lesson 9. Notice Plot via Character Conflict/Change
Write-About-Reading Template: Think About Character
Excerpts to Write About: “The Julian Chapter” From Auggie and Me: Three Wonder Stories by R. J. Palacio
Lesson 10. Notice How Character Drives Plot*
Write-About-Reading Templates: Story Map; Write About Character and Plot
Lesson 11. Develop Theories About Characters
Write-About-Reading Templates: Create a Theory About Character; Compare/Contrast Characters
Lesson 12. Analyze Character*
Write-About-Reading Template: Character Essay: Task/Assessment Options
Excerpts to Write About: Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green by Helen Phillips
Section 3. Themes
Lesson 13. Determine Theme in Story
Write-About-Reading Template: What’s the Theme?
Excerpt to Write About: “The Mighty” posted by Brishti Bandyopadhyay in Folktales for Kids
Lesson 14. Analyze Development of Theme in Story*
Write-About-Reading Template: Pick a Question
Excerpts to Write About: The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo
Lesson 15. Determine Theme in Poetry
Write-About-Reading Template: Find the Evidence
Excerpt to Write About: “Mr. Nobody” by Anonymous
Lesson 16. Compare and Contrast Theme in Poetry*
Write-About-Reading Template: Elements of Poetry
Excerpts to Write About: “Dreams” and “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes
Section 4. Point of View
Lesson 17. Whose Point of View Is It?
Write-About-Reading Templates: Point of View; Point of View: Advanced
Excerpts to Write About: I Am the Dog I Am the Cat by Donald Hall
Lesson 18. How Point of View Colors the Way a Story Is Told*
Write-About-Reading Template: Who Is Telling the Story?
Excerpts to Write About: “My First Step to the White House” by Chris Van Allsburg
Lesson 19. Compare and Contrast Narration in Different Texts
Write-About-Reading Template: Compare POV
Excerpts to Write About: “Medusa, Pegasus, and the Chimera” retold by Steven Zorn; Medusa Tells All: Beauty Missing, Hair Hissing by Rebecca Fjelland Davis
Lesson 20. Analyze Contrasting Points of View*
Write-About-Reading Template: Two Views
Excerpts to Write About: Wonder by R. J. Palacio
Section 5. Visuals
Lesson 21. How Illustrations Add to Meaning/Mood
Write-About-Reading Template: Imagine the Story With Pictures
Excerpt to Write About: One Day, The End by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Lesson 22. How Illustrations Contribute to Meaning
Write-About-Reading Template: How Visual Elements Add to Meaning
Excerpts to Write About: The Promise by Nicola Davies
Lesson 23. Compare Text to Staged Performance*
Write-About-Reading Template: Compare/Contrast Text to Movie or Play
Lesson 24. Analyze Text to Drama*
Write-About-Reading Template: Analyze Text to Drama: Compare/Contrast Text to Movie or Play
Section 6. Words and Structure
Lesson 25. Determine the Meaning of Words and Phrases
Write-About-Reading Template: Look at Language: Words and Phrases
Excerpts to Write About: The Real Boy by Anne Ursu
Lesson 26. Understand Figurative Language*
Write-About-Reading Template: Figurative Language Collection
Excerpts to Write About: Figurative Language: In November by Cynthia Rylant; Like Butter on Pancakes by Jonathan London; Canoe Days by Gary Paulsen
Lesson 27. Analyze Overall Structure
Write-About-Reading Template: Text Structure Analyzer
Excerpts to Write About: No Two Snowflakes by Sheree Fitch
Lesson 28. Compare, Contrast, and Analyze Structure Between Texts*
Write-About-Reading Template: Compare/Contrast Chart for Organization
Excerpts to Write About: Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold by Joyce Sidman and Rick Allen
REFERENCES