In the course Teachers as Writers, I explored the text Nonfiction Craft Lessons by Joann Portalupi and Ralph Fletcher. This text gives a vast amount of lessons on supporting students nonfiction writing. In first grade, we spend a lot of time on "All About" writings, as well as opinion writings, making this text useful and fitting for my class.
The lesson plan I designed was centered around the lesson "Collecting Dash Facts on a Topic." For this lesson, students read through nonfiction texts on animals and jotted down important facts about that animal. According to Graham and Herbert (2010), the act of taking notes involves sifting through a text in order to determine the most the most important ideas and transforming those ideas into written phrases and key words. Note takers organize the abstracted material in some way, connecting one idea to another, while blending new information with their own knowledge, resulting in new understandings of texts.The facts that students collected were used to support their opinion on whether these animals should be protected or not.
Students collection of dash facts was assessed using the rubric found below.
Students also collected dash facts later on in the school when writing all about animals. Students began by researching specific animals using digital texts. Next, they jotted down important facts about the animal's habitat, food, and family. Then, they turned those facts into a research report. The students in my class have certainly enjoyed collecting dash facts!
Common Core State Standards: CCSS: W1.1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.