Teaching children to be writers and to like to write is a messy process. Teaching writing is time consuming. Sometimes, at my house, my children just need more time, with me available to help, in order to get a bigger writing project finished.
I have been reading an interesting book, "Best Practices for Planning Reading & Writing Instruction" by Antoinette Cerulli Fornshell. The book is definitely written for a classroom teacher but I am finding much of value in the book for my homeschool. The author considers what it means to learn to write in the fullest sense. She posits, based on the work of Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, that learning to write in the fullest sense means:
- writing voluntarily and often
- writing in a variety of genres
- having confidence in oneself as a writer
- presenting oneself as a writer to others
- using writing as a tool for thinking
- writing to communicate for both personal and professional reasons
- writing to share experiences or information with others
- noticing techniques and styles in other writers
- inviting comments on, responses to, and critiques of one's writing
- drawing on literary knowledge as a resource for writing
- using organized sets of information as a resource for writing.
A focused writing workshop can help with many of the aforementioned goals. So, what did our writing workshop look like today? My 6th grade daughter already had a really strong draft of her fractured fairy tale finished. She used the time to:
- do a bit of research on the internet to replace a common noun in her story with a specific, proper noun
- proofread her story again
- sit with me while I proofread her story and pointed out some minor mistakes in word usage to her (their instead of there, for example)
- divide up her story into chunks that she could paste on pieces of cardstock to make a book
- practice drawing a wolf for her story.
I left it up to her to decide how she wanted to publish her fractured fairy tale. She decided on making a book using 6" by 6" pieces of cardstock but she hasn't decided on the binding yet. I will post pictures of the completed published book when she has finished. In the meantime, here is the text of her fractured fairy tale:
The Four Little Pigs
Well, we all know how the story of the Three Little Pigs goes. There are three little pigs who go out to start a life away from home.
The first pig is stupid and lazy and builds his house out of straw. I mean what kinda’ hobo makes a house outa’ straw! The second is a tad smarter, but not much. He builds his house out of sticks. And the third, the smartest of the three, builds his house out of bricks.
So then the wolf comes, blows down the first two houses and chases the pigs into the last. The wolf tries to come in through the chimney, but the pigs boiled a big pot of water at the bottom. The wolf ran away crying, with a scalded bottom, and the pigs rejoiced.
But one thing this story left out was that there was a fourth little pig. But he decided to stay home, and later went to college before getting a home. So this is how his story goes.
The pig was out grocery shopping, when he met the wolf. The wolf tried to bite him, but the pig was quicker. He had been taking karate for some time now, it was one of his numerous hobbies. With a few kicks here, and a few punches there, the wolf was on the ground and the pig was in the car driving home.
Now, a few days later, the pig was on a hiking trail when he met the wolf again.
“Hello Mr. Pig. You’re good, but I am afraid that you are no match for me now.” The wolf pulled out an M249 Squad Automatic Machine Gun, loaded and ready to fire! What kind of idiot sells a gun to a wolf?!?
“Put your hands behind your head!” ordered the wolf. The pig did as he was told.
“Good bye Mr. Pig!”
“WAIT!! You can’t just end this like that! You worked so hard to hunt me down and you are just going to eat me raw!?! Now that’s just dumb. What you need to do is make a nice pork chop dinner. I can help you!”
Now the wolf thought that sounded sooooo much better, that he let the pig get up, and start getting things ready to make a meal. And besides, he had a gun!
“OK, we need… one roasting spit and a fire, check. One pig, check. One super special pork chop herb of deliciousness, oh…” said the pig.
“What!?” cried the wolf.
“Well, we need the super special pork chop herb of deliciousness if you want this to work, and it only grows over there.” The pig pointed to the cliff.
“It is only a foot or two down, can you grab that for me?” asked the pig.
“Sure.” grunted the wolf. He leaned over and looked, but there was nothing there.
“Hey, there is nothing here!” called the wolf, just as the pig kicked him and sent him down the cliff, and into the river below.
A few days later, the pig was at home working on grading some papers for the class that he taught at The CFDA (College For Domesticated Animals), when he heard knocking at his door.
The pig hopped up and looked though the peek hole in the door to see who it was. To his amazement, it was the very same wolf!
“Mr. Pig, Mr. Pig, let me in!”
The pig really didn’t have that many good comebacks like his brothers, all he could think of was, “Ah, no.”
“Well then, I am going to blow up your house!” said the wolf, as he pulled out a few grenades. He wasn’t going to try to blow down a whole house again! He isn’t that stupid, you know.
“You just try…” said the pig.
As soon as the wolf touched the house, an alarm started going off, then police arrived, so did the navy! After what had happened to the pig’s brothers, he had put up a full scale security system. Well, the wolf just ran for it.
Too late! He got hit with a tranquilizer gun, and is now in the JFSAFCA (Jail For Scary And Freaky Carnivorous Animals).
And the fourth little pig now lives happily ever after.
The End.
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