Developing Minilessons for K2

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Developing Minilessons for K-2

• Lori A. Nanney
• K-2 NBPTS Teacher
• Cleveland County Schools

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What are Minilessons?

• Address specific concerns, weaknesses and
  strengths (Focused)
• Used as a method of correcting students writing
  (Interactive)
• Designed to meet student needs (Reflective)

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Where do ideas for minilessons come from?

• Experiences
• Other colleagues
• Authors/Illustrators
• Students Writing
• Minilessons should improve the quality of
  students writing and should strengthen any
  weaknesses.

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• Minilessons are prescriptions for the diagnosis
  of the writing of your students. As you begin
  your writing program, mini lessons will be
  universal (appeal to all of your students). As
  your students progress through their writing
  development and stages, individualized mini
  lessons will evolve.

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Methods Used to Teach Minilessons

• Demonstration
• Explicitly tell and show an example
• Inquiry
• Guided practice
• L.Calkins

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Demonstration

• This is the most common method. This involves
  taking your students through a process going
  step by step talking aloud about each step as you
  go.

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DemonstrationExamples of activities

• Kindergarten Using a writing rubric to teach
  step by step illustrating a character.
• First grade Think aloud sounding out unknown
  words when writing.
• Second grade Showing how to indent paragraphs
  (when and where).

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Explicitly tell and Show and example

• This method challenges us to make teaching
  informative and memorable. A passage, piece of
  literature, anecdote, metaphor, or even a gesture
  can be used to make it stick.

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Explicitly tell and show exampleExamples of
activities

• Kindergarten Using a newspaper, show students
  how to put on your goggles to look for sight
  words. As soon as you see it, read it!
• First grade Use an example of a descriptive
  sentence. Explain this describing word as a
  sparkle word and tell why authors use them.
• Second grade Use a piece of literature where
  the writing is embellished. Explain this as
  hovering like a helicopter. Tell why authors
  use this.

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Inquiry Method

• This method is used mostly in the upper grades
  but when implemented in the K-2 classroom may
  span over a two or three day period. This method
  combines both demonstration and guided practice.
  Students are invited to join you in an inquiry,
  become engaged in the inquiry, and transfer their
  insights into their own writing.

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InquiryExamples of activities

• Kindergarten Use a piece of poetry or rhyming
  poem. Admire the use of language and rhyming
  words. Through the inquiry help students see that
  authors use rhyme to help us predict and read.
• First grade Use a poem and admire how the
  author used describing words to tell how
  something looks, smells, tastes, sounds, feels,
  etcin order to help us see a clearer image.
• Second grade Use a poem and admire how the
  author takes a subject and uses words to show
  emotion.

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Guided practice method

• During guided practice, children are guided and
  have an instructive experience they would not
  have been able to have on their own. Weaknesses
  and strengths in the writing of individual
  students are addressed in a manner where all
  children receive benefits.

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Guided practiceExamples of activities

• Explore a piece of writing that addresses a
  specific concern or weakness. Use pieces that
  show a negative use of a practice as well as
  those that show a positive use.
• Kindergarten (spacing issues)
• Mydogwashape.hegavemeadogehug.
• First grade (Describing words)
• The yellow, hot, burning sun gave me a
  terrible and painful sunburn while I was at the
  beach!
• Second grade (The need to tell more about an
  action)
• My Dad became angry. My mom was upset too! I
  did not know what to do!

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• Minilessons are like huddles in the midst of a
  football game. They are gatherings that contain a
  mix of informality, clarity and urgency.
• We situate whatever we are trying to teach
  inside the story a piece of on going work.

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• Minilessons are brief and focused so as not to
  overload the students with too many new things to
  learn. We scaffold our students writing through
  carefully planned and executed minilessons.
• Linda Dorn

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• Minilessons can be taught as a series of lessons.
  The first thing we must teach our students is how
  to come up with ideas for writing. Writers react
  with passion to things they feel, smell, hear,
  touch, or taste. Writing involves all senses.
• Katie Wood Ray
• What You Know by Heart

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Where ideas for writing come from

• Things we see that are interesting
• Very close observations of things
• Questions about a subject, person, thing or place
• List of things we may want to think about later
• Quotations from music, films, literature
• Writing from photographs that interest us
• Things we remember about our past
• Family stories we know
• Word play with words we like
• Entries about things we care about
• Entries about things that interest us
• K.W.Ray

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Make minilessons memorable!

• When we make a big deal out of it children will
  too! When we are passionate about our writing,
  they will become passionate writers!