Literacy Retreat 2015

SECRET SITE

Complex Thinking | Complex Tasks | Beginnings & Endings | Academic Vocabulary

English Language Learners | Visual & Multimodal Texts | Writing Process | Sentence Variety

Building Stronger Beginnings & Endings

Quick Links

Mini-Lesson Resources
Opinion, Persuasive, & Argumentative Writing
Informative Writing
Narrative Writing
Student Writing Samples Quick Links

Kristina identified various “pieces” to introductions and conclusions. If you would like to utilize the same puzzle-piece analogy, access JPEGs to use within your classroom resources.

If you represent the trait of organization with a train icon, then you may want the separate engine and caboose icons as well.

Students need to know the key ingredients within each mode of writing so they can incorporate the appropriate elements. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, these posters reveal the essential pieces for the body of the writing, too: (Persuasive, Argumentative, Informative, Narrative).

OPINION, PERSUASIVE, & ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING

Primary teachers could offer students sentence starters that suggest an introduction and a conclusion. Here are a couple anchor-chart examples.
Use the What & Why template to separate the introduction (what you want/think/feel) from the body (why you want/think/feel that way). This also helps students avoid using “because” in the introduction. (For a video-based explanation of this resource, check out the archived article in our Idea Library.)
Before students can align with one side of a topic/issue, they need to consider the pros and cons of both perspectives.

Utilize this template when students are reading multiple texts on the same topic/issue. The middle column is for a quick list of the assigned texts. And then, while reading, students jot the cited evidence from the texts that represents the differing perspectives. This allows them to then align with the stronger side in an argument and/or to analyze another author’s argument.
For additional resources and strategies tied to opinion, persuasive, and argumentative writing–check out the archived articles in our
Idea Library. The most relevant include:

Informative Writing

For resources and strategies tied to informative writing–check out the archived articles in our Idea Library. The most relevant include:

Narrative Writing

Orient the reader within narrative introductions. Give them a sense of when and where this is all taking place. Practice creating setting-based introductions (without having to generate the entire story) using these simple templates. Take students to different locations within the school building (e.g., boiler room, cafeteria, playground, storage room, gymnasium, etc.) and have them notice all the setting-specific details. Check out these two examples generated for the elementary school library and a middle school boys’ locker room.
Reveal 100 hooks from popular literature. Identify each type and encourage students to emulate them within their own stories.

Provide opportunities for students to practice writing introductions and conclusions for well-known stories. This allows students to focus on creatively crafting a twist to an old tale. Check out these examples from Stephanie Voss’s sixth grade class at Westchester Intermediate School (Chesterton, IN).