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Super Saturday
Writing Conference

SECRET SITE

WRITE ABOUT THE TEXT

SESSION 1  |  Grades K-12 / ELL All Levels

[HANDOUT]

Advance from retelling to summarizing to main idea

KEY DETAILS

Recognize & recall text details per story element.

RETELLING

Retell the story in order, providing key details for each story element.

Introduce Set-up, Mix-up, Fix-up and provide writing templates for primary students.

Rising action builds tension, making the problem bigger, harder, or more impossible to solve.

Connect the individual story elements to their placements within the Story Structure.

SUMMARY

Summarize only the most important details in order.

TRAITS

Clarify character description from character development.

Visualize a character’s development and evolution through a story.

Track a character from beginning to end to infer consistent traits.

Clarify character feelings versus character traits.

Support a character trait with textual evidence on a Character Web.

WinnieTuck Everlasting

THEME

Infer the author’s message through the changing of the character.

Identify significant choices or pivotal moments in a character’s life.

Define a “lesson.”

Introduce 3 types of lessons.

Transition from lesson to theme.