This lesson was developed for WritingFix after being proposed by NNWP Teacher Consultant Erica Pienkowski at an AT&T-sponsored in-service class for teachers.
The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from chapters 3 and 4 of the book.
If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :
Step one (sharing the published model): Show off your classroom copy of The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Give students a little background information about the novel: Sixteen interesting and bizarre characters, who live in a mysterious apartment building, compete to become heir to the Westing millions. Inspired by the intrigue surrounding Howard Hughes's will and by the celebration of the bicentennial of the United States, the novel combines a tricky mystery with a tribute to American opportunity.
Read aloud chapters 3 and 4 from the novel, which reveals that when smoke was seen in the Westing Mansion, Sam Westing was found dead. The search for the murderer begins and continues for the rest of the novel!
Discuss how mystery novel readers expect to have all of the clues to the murder (once the novel is finished). Discuss what it would take to write a story similar to this, where you have all clues that need to be presented them to their readers. In order to do this interestingly, you have to have memorable, colorful, interesting and descriptive words to help paint the picture of the murder in the reader’s mind.
Tell your students that they will be writing a scene from a murder mystery, where someone discovers who has died, and are beginning to guess how the victim died and perhaps who killed him/her. With good details, your reader will know who died, perhaps how they died, and they might have a guess about who did the victim in! Have your students use the interactive choice game on the Student Instructions Page to decide who died, how they died and who might have killed them.
Step two (introducing student models of writing): In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson. The groups will certainly talk about the idea development, because of the embedded discussion tool that comes with each set. You might also have your students talk about the organization in the writing too.
We're looking for student samples for all grade levels for this prompt! Help us get some, and we'll send you a free resource for your classroom! Contact us at publish@writingfix.com for details.
Step three (thinking and pre-writing):The interactive buttons on the Student Instruction Page will help inspire your students to begin theirmagicaladventure.
After the discussion and review of student models, students should use the interactive buttons to help them create their own magic object. Next, they should use the graphic organizer to help them plan their scene. It requires them to brainstorm interesting and unusual words as well as their “How to” letter. Now they are ready to begin writing their adventure.
Step four (revising with specific trait language): To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts. Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5." Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings. For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.
Step five (editing for conventions): After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor. If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers. With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it. The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.
Step six (publishing for the portfolio): When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block. Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here. Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.
Interested in publishing student work on-line? We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers. This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.
Learn more about author Ellen Raskin
by clicking here.
