1 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Welcome! If you brought your wireless device along with you today, you can open and follow along with the electronic version of this PowerPoint using Using the online link, you will be able to access: Links to online lessons! Links to student samples and teacher models! Links to book titles! If you save this PDF to a Flashdrive or to your computer, you’ll be able to open and access these free resources any time in the future. Corbett Harrison, Educational Consultants, LLC Always Write and WritingFix websites

2 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Welcome! Please read the completely-out-of-context paragraph excerpt from a Newberry Honor book on the cover of your packet. Be prepared to tell your neighbors specific things you notice about the author’s… Idea Development skills…or Organization skills…or Voice skills…or Word Choice skills…or Sentence Fluency skills…or Conventional skills Corbett Harrison, Educational Consultants, LLC Always Write and WritingFix websites

3 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Let’s start with a group word game: Tri-Verbs Instructions: Work with your group to brainstorm as many groups of three action verbs that rhyme with each other as you can in four minutes. An example from one of my mentor texts would be: To root, To toot, To parachute. An example from my brain is: To scold, To hold, To catch a cold. To Root, to Toot, to Parachute by Brian Cleary Corbett Harrison, Educational Consultants, LLC Always Write and WritingFix websites

4 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following writer’s notebook idea is just one of many ideas found on my Verb Invigoration lesson at Always Write: Tri-Verb Comics: To show your knowledge of action verbs that rhyme with other action verbs, create several sets of Tri-Verb sets that imitate the title of “To Root, to Toot, to Parachute.” Choose four or five favorites. Create an illustration and a caption that attempts to show the three verbs happening at roughly the same time. If you like the idea of these comics, keep creating them in the corners of your writer’s notebook when you have a moment or two during sacred writing time. Click image to see my whole page of Tri-Verb Comics.

5 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: We will base our goal on Bloom’s. Click here to access this graphic on-line. A writing lesson usually raises the expectations to apply.

6 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: A writing workshop is supposed to push them to create. But if students don’t know how to analyze or evaluate writing skills, they aren’t really participating in a writer’s workshop. Today, we’re going to learn techniques for helping students rise above apply.

7 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s Agenda: Participate in three skill-based mini lessons for writing Practice analysis skills with each small piece of writing we create Practice evaluation skills once all three mini lessons are shared Create a choice-based piece of writing that makes use of two or three writing skills we’ve learned about today Provide constructive feedback to each other using trait language and following the rules of a writer’s workshop Corbett Harrison, Educational Consultants, LLC Always Write and WritingFix websites

8 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following vocabulary writing task is just one of many ideas found at my Vocabulary Resource Page at Always Write: Writing Skill 1: Uses action verbs interestingly when describing things Lesson Name: Showing Sentences Mentor Text: To Root, to Toot, to Parachute by Brian Cleary Objectives: 1) Students will brainstorm and analyze verbs to choose the best verbs for the writing task (word choice); 2) Students will improve descriptions (idea development) by using action verbs instead of linking verbs; 3) Students will improve the readability (voice) of their sentences by using action verbs. 4) Students will experiment with participial phrases in their sentences (sentence fluency + voice) Pre-write/Writer’s notebook challenge: Tri-Verb Comics as a group brainstorm, then as a writer’s notebook challenge. Main lesson: Introduce Vocabulary “Showing Sentences”: place one vocabulary word in a sentence with three identified action verbs and two context clues for the vocabulary word. Enrichment lesson: Teach participles to show them how to use action verbs as adjectival phrases (sentence fluency + voice)

9 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following vocabulary writing task is just one of many ideas found at my Vocabulary Resource Page at Always Write: Main Lesson: Introduction to Writing a Vocabulary Showing Sentence Define showing sentence: Three action verbs used to show the reader details of scene Show Teacher Exemplar: Link Show Student Exemplar: Link Apply rubric to a Student Exemplar: Link Students compose showing sentences based on vocabulary words, first in pairs, then on their own.

10 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following vocabulary writing task is just one of many ideas found at my Vocabulary Resource Page at Always Write: Enrichment Lesson: Participles to improve sentence quality Teach the three types of participle sentence & have students apply the skill to future showing sentences: S + P , -ing phrase. -ing phrase , S + P . S - - P , -ing phrase , .

11 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following vocabulary writing task is just one of many ideas found on my Vocabulary Resource Page at Always Write: The Task: Work with a partner to create three together-authored showing sentences. Use a different vocabulary word from a Bingo Card in each sentence Underline your action verbs, including participle verbs if you use a participle. Create two context clues for your sentence that would assist someone who didn’t know the vocabulary word’s meaning. Work by yourself to create two original showing sentences that you’re personally proud of. Click here to access all five Bingo cards I used in this workshop.

12 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: A writing workshop is supposed to push them to create. But if students don’t know how to analyze or evaluate writing skills, they aren’t really participating in a writer’s workshop. Today, we’re going to learn techniques for helping students rise above apply.

13 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Your SELF-ANALYSIS Prompt: Look at your five completed showing sentences. Which three show the best use of three verbs that work together in some way? Metacognition: Be prepared to share a specific reason/detail with each of your three choices.

14 Writer’s Notebook Idea Break!The Online Challenge: Collective Nouns Investigate real collective nouns and find two you like. Invent two spurious-sounding collective nouns that don’t exist. Put each collective noun into a sentence. Put all four together on a page in your writer’s notebook. Share by telling your neighbor, “Two of these collective nouns are real and two aren’t. Can you guess which is which?” A Cache of Jewels by Ruth Heller

15 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 2: Uses descriptions that attempt to set a mood or a tone (while reviewing action verbs) Lesson Name: Start with what ISN’T there Mentor Text: Caves by Stephen Kramer Objectives: 1) Students will describe a place or thing by starting with important details that are not present (idea development + voice); 2) Students will use action verbs to describe the appearance of stationary things, like the setting or inanimate objects (word choice + idea development) Pre-write/Partner challenge: Practice descriptions: make a beach seem peaceful by telling the reader what isn’t there first; do the same thing and make an amusement park seem dangerous. Main lesson: Describe a personal place (locker, desk, closet, car, bedroom, office, pantry, etc.) by telling us what isn’t there before telling us what is there; try to use action verbs to describe the setting. Enrichment lesson: What kind of poem can you invent where the poet describes what isn’t there before he/she describes what is there?

16 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 2: Uses descriptions that attempt to set a mood or a tone (while reviewing action verbs) Lesson Name: Start with what ISN’T there Mentor Text: Caves by Stephen Kramer Far below the earth’s surface, water drips from the roof of a cave. The drop falls through darkness into a large stone room no one has ever seen. No bird has ever sung here. The scent of wildflowers has never hung in the air. For thousands of years, the tomblike silence has been broken only by the sound of falling water. Drip. Drip. Drip. Then, one day, footsteps break the stillness. Voices drift through the air. Flashlight beams cut across the darkness, lighting up a strange and wonderful sight. Stone icicles hang overhead. Smooth sheets of stone coat the walls. Huge pillars of rock connect the floor and ceiling. For the first time ever, someone sees what the drops of water have made.

17 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Mentor Text # 2: Compare this use of the technique to the one from Kramer’s Caves book. “No training wheels. No steadying hand on the seat. No one to catch you if you fall. Every time I begin a new piece of writing, I'm reminded of what it's like to ride a bicycle for the first time.” (found in Vicki Spandel’s 9 Rights of Every Writer)

18 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Mentor Text # 2: Compare this use of the technique to the one from Kramer’s Caves book. “No training wheels. No steadying hand on the seat. No one to catch you if you fall. Every time I begin a new piece of writing, I'm reminded of what it's like to ride a bicycle for the first time.” --Stephen Kramer’s “No Training Wheels” essay (found in Vicki Spandel’s 9 Rights of Every Writer)

19 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Teacher Exemplar: Compare this use of the technique to the one from Kramer’s Caves book. “Dear students, I'm pleased to tell you that you have come to a very unique Language Arts classroom. Here there will be no seating charts. There will be no grammar worksheets. There will be no ‘Answer the questions at the end of the story or poem in your textbook.’ There will also be no assigned writing prompts. I don't teach English that way because I personally don't learn that way.” --from my introductory letter to my students (full letter found here)

20 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Student Exemplar: Compare this use of the technique to the one from Kramer’s Caves book. My Room by Brandon, eleventh grade I enter my room. No silence here. It is an area void of any order or neatness. I know only by faith that the floor is even there, hidden beneath mounds of dirty and clean clothes. The walls, invisible under posters and pictures, souvenirs and snapshots, haven’t seen the light of day in years. I take a step further in, being careful to avoid what could be hiding under the mounds of stuff that buries my floor. The stereo is booming beside my bed, which is unmade. This is a room of beautiful disorder. All four walls are one big collage. Bonus question: How did Brandon do with his use of action verbs? Compare Brandon’s verbs to those used in the original mentor text.

21 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 2: Uses descriptions that attempt to set a mood or a tone (while reviewing action verbs) Lesson Name: Start with what ISN’T there Mentor Text: Caves by Stephen Kramer Objectives: 1) Students will describe a place or thing by starting with important details that are not present (idea development + voice); 2) Students will use action verbs to describe the appearance of stationary things, like the setting or inanimate objects (word choice + idea development) Pre-write/Partner challenge: Practice descriptions: make a beach seem peaceful by telling the reader what isn’t there first; do the same thing and make an amusement park seem dangerous. Main lesson: Describe a personal place (locker, desk, closet, car, bedroom, office, pantry, etc.) by telling us what isn’t there before telling us what is there; try to use action verbs to describe the setting. Enrichment lesson: What kind of poem can you invent where the poet describes what isn’t there before he/she describes what is there? Time for… Or if you’re feeling poetic…

22 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: A writing workshop is supposed to push them to create. Tell your group if your “not there” portion of the description turned out better than the other half of the description. Why? Today, we’re going to learn techniques for helping students rise above apply.

23 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s Agenda: (a reminder) Participate in three skill-based mini lessons for writing Practice analysis skills with each small piece of writing we create Practice evaluation skills once all three mini lessons are shared Create a choice-based piece of writing that makes use of two or three writing skills we’ve learned about today. Provide constructive feedback to each other using trait language and following the rules of a writer’s workshop Corbett Harrison, Educational Consultants, LLC Always Write and WritingFix websites

24 Writer’s Notebook Idea Break!The Online Challenge: Wacky Newscast Investigate a time in history before they had what we now know as the modern news or newscast. Create an anachronism by imagining a TV news reporter was on-site to report a famous moment from history. Think 18th and 19th Century, perhaps. Use real facts as you create the script of what your newscaster (in the past) will say about the history that is happening. Decorate a writer’s notebook page with words and images that celebrate your idea. 51 Wacky We-Search Reports by Barry Lane Additional Mentor Text: Tub-boo-boo by M. Palatini

25 Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamilloOne summer’s day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries – and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It’s because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it’s because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

26 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Objectives: 1) Students will create a short description of a machine at work, using transition words and phrases in between the steps they describe the movement (organization + sentence fluency); 2) Students will be cognizant of their verb choices when they describe with details (word choice + idea development). Notebook challenge: Create an original, automated machine in your writer’s notebook! Describe and illustrate the machine’s steps. Main lesson: Describe an original or an already-invented machine using a variety of accurate transition words. Enrichment lesson: Revise the original description inspired by Brian Selznick’s mentor text.

27 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Ultimately, I want my students who can to invent an original machine to write up. From my writer’s notebook, I show my original machine long before I teach my students. It gets their brains heading in a good direction. Plus, I get to use a Pee Wee Herman clip as a mentor text when I am encouraging this type of writer’s notebook thinking. Click image to enlarge.

28 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick “Homer got down from the chair and pushed a button on the machine marked, ‘Start.’ Rings of batter started dropping into the hot fat.  After a ring of batter was cooked on one side an automatic gadget turned it over and the other side would cook.  Then another automatic gadget gave the doughnut a little push and it rolled neatly down a little chute, all ready to eat (page 56 in my copy).” Students: I’ve underlined the transitional words and phrases in this description of an automatic donut-making machine. Talk to a partner, attempting to answer this question: “How would you rate this author’s skill of using a ‘variety of transitional words and phrases’? What advice might you give him/her if they were looking to improve this description?” Then…I challenge my writers to go and create a better automatic donut-making machine with words.

29 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick This samples can be accessed here at the online lesson. Scroll down to find these samples at the webpage link.

30 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick This samples can be accessed here at the online lesson. Scroll down to find these samples at the webpage link. Original Machines!

31 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Ten-minute paragraph: Create a five- to eight-sentence description of… Robert McCloskey’s donut-making machine, adding more details. An original donut-making machine that does something different than McCloskey’s machine to make its donuts. An original machine that automatically completes some simple-but-necessary task. Be prepared to analyze your paragraph’s use of: Transitional words and phrases Action verbs in the description Interesting details

32 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following learning task was one of our Writing Lessons of the Month found at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Be prepared to analyze your paragraph’s use of: Transitional words and phrases Action verbs in the description Interesting details GOLD SILVER BRONZE

33 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: A writing workshop is supposed to push them to create. Tell your group why you rated each writing skill as strong, stronger, strongest. Today, we’re going to learn techniques for helping students rise above apply.

34 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following writer’s notebook idea is just one of many ideas found on my Verb Invigoration lesson at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Before committing to a revision plan, compare your description of a machine to this description of a machine from The Invention of Hugo Cabret: “A cascade of perfect movements, with hundreds of brilliantly calibrated actions, coursed through the mechanical man.  The key tightened a spring connected to a series of gears that extended down into the base of the figure.  There, the last gear turned a series of brass disks with precisely cut edges.  Two little hammer-like contraptions came down and trailed along the edges of the notched disks, rising and falling as the disks steadily turned (pg. 240 in my copy).” 

35 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers The following writer’s notebook idea is just one of many ideas found on my Verb Invigoration lesson at Always Write: Writing Skill 3: Uses a variety of transition words accurately to move a piece of writing forward Lesson Name: Transitioning through the Machine Mentor Texts: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey & The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Enrichment lesson: Revise the original description inspired by Brian Selznick’s mentor text. Make a revision plan for your machine paragraph based on your experience: Comparing your paragraph to the original donut machine description from Homer Price. Comparing your paragraph to the machine description from The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Discussing which skills (transition variety, interesting details, action verbs) you gave a gold, a silver, and a bronze medal to.

36 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: Revise the piece. Then ask, “Am I done with this or might I make it better and longer?” Tell your group why you rated each writing skill as strong, stronger, strongest. Today, we’re going to learn techniques for helping students rise above apply.

37 Writer’s Notebook Idea Break!The Online Challenge: Pi Day Poems Write Pi’s numbers going down the margin, one number per line, until you run out of space because you won’t run out of numbers. A “Pi Poem” follows this pattern: whatever number is in the margin is the number of words or syllables in that line of poetry. Write a “Pie Poem” and a “Pi Poem,” both using the pattern establish by the number. Which poem turned out better? Decorate a page in your writer’s notebook that shares one or both of your Pi-inspired poems. Enemy Pie by Derek Munson

38 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s Agenda: (a reminder) Participate in three skill-based mini lessons for writing Practice analysis skills with each small piece of writing we create Practice evaluation skills once all three mini lessons are shared Create a choice-based piece of writing that makes use of two or three writing skills we’ve learned about today. Provide constructive feedback to each other using trait language and following the rules of a writer’s workshop Lunch! Corbett Harrison, Educational Consultants, LLC Always Write and WritingFix websites

39 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers My Non-negotiables for Writer’s Workshop: Students are always working on something for their writing portfolios; some papers are assigned while others are “free choice” papers. To go into a student’s portfolio, the paper must go through the following steps: 1) pre-writing; 2) drafting; 3) response; 4) revision; 5) editing; 6) teacher conference as part of the final assessment. At the end of a school year, a portfolio needs to have six additions: two narratives, two expository papers, two argumentative papers. Students may certainly submit more on their own. My mini-lessons for writing ALWAYS give students both a skill to try out and a potential idea for a longer paper they might take through all steps for the portfolio. When my students are in “Response,” they always must have two or three specific skills with which they are helping each other and basing their revision plans. Most of their writer’s workshop grade should be based on them having and completing a revision plan for their portfolio submission…and being able to talk about it. I own every edition of Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle, the earliest influence on my writer’s workshop.

40 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers My Non-negotiables for Writer’s Workshop: Most importantly …I model the writing process. …I ask the students to critique my use of writing skills I’ve been teaching them. You can find my online writing portfolio at our website, and I have several pieces of writing where I demonstrate all steps of the writing process. I created this writer’s notebook page inspired by a photo I took. A few weeks later, I finished this typed final draft inspired by my writing process.

41 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers E.G.O.T. Vocabulary Sentences: Noun Verb Adjective Adverb beauty beautify beautiful beautifully

42 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers E.G.O.T. Vocabulary Sentences: Write down an EGOT sentence based on a word from your Bingo Cards Noun Verb Adjective Adverb Her beauty was breath-taking, and the pageant's audience admired her beautifully sculpted hair and her beautiful gown, for her stylist had helped to beautify each element of this contestant flawlessly. beauty beautify Out loud, with a partner, rewrite your first sentence, turning three of the forms into synonyms. Her elegance was breath-taking, and the pageant's audience admired her exquisitely sculpted hair and her glamorous gown, for her stylist had helped to beautify each element of this contestant flawlessly. beautiful beautifully

43 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Thirty-minute draft: A Counting Up/Counting Down Narrative Create a short narrative—fictional or autobiographical—that is structured around someone counting down or counting up in the story. In between the counting up or counting down, include great (possibly slow-motion) details. As you draft, be thinking about what you know about the following writing skills: Using interesting details Using action verbs more than linking verbs Using words/ideas to create a mood or tone Uses a variety of transitions Uses a unique structure to tell story

44 Writer’s Notebook Idea Break!The Online Challenge: Start & Stop Poems Brainstorm and select words, phrases, clauses, or short sentences that intrigue you. Plan a poem where the first word, phrase, clause, or short sentence is the same line. Write your poem(s) into your writer’s notebook and provide some sort of visual. If you’re ever stuck for an idea during sacred writing time, consider composing a new Start & Stop Poem about any topic that occurs to you. Twilight Comes Twice by Ralph Fletcher

45 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Responder Tasks: A Counting Up/Counting Down Narrative Half of you will use the Revision Sprint to help focus your revision suggestions. Half of you will use our specially-made Sticky Note to do the same.

46 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Today’s goal for improving writing instruction: A writing workshop is supposed to push them to create. But if students don’t know how to analyze or evaluate writing skills, they aren’t really participating in a writer’s workshop. Today, we’re going to learn techniques for helping students rise above apply.

47 Critical Trait Thinkingdeveloping analysis and evaluation skills with your student writers Your goal for spring: Teach three skill-based mini-lessons Design a tool to have students analyze and evaluate those three skills in a different piece of writing Practice helping your students have writing conversations with you and each other based on skill analysis and evaluation; practice “revision conversations.” Start “mining” your favorite books and excerpts for quality examples of specific skills you see the writers incorporating Your goal for fall 2017: Begin incorporating a writing workshop environment