Writing About Reading as a Genre

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always difficult.  Starting a unit that lasts more than 3 weeks is asking for trouble because so much momentum is lost over the holiday break.

I've been dabbling with Lucy Calkins' Units of Study and came across the unit Writing About Reading:  From Reader's Notebooks to Companion Books. Dabbling isn't the right word.  I'm enthralled in this unit!  I'm lucky enough to work in a district that finds great value in the work of Teachers College at Columbia University and the Reading and Writing Project, who developed these units.

For years I've known the importance of students writing their thinking about what they read.  This kind of writing is considered writing to learn, and requires readers to pay close attention to the books they are engaged with.  Writing about reading has never been authentic, though. Until now.

This Unit of Study suggests turning writing about reading into an authentic genre in the form of a companion book.  These books are found for many top-selling books, mostly ones that are made into movies:  The Hunger Games, Twilight, Star Wars.  There are may mentor texts for students to set their sites on when writing this way.  I knew I was stepping into unexplored territory with this unit, so decided to approach it as an experiment:  what works?  what's missing?  how will it fit into my year with the time I have and the structure of my schedule?

What I'm loving most about this Unit of Study is the scaffolding that's suggested. Immediately I found it easy to adapt to my 42 minute periods (although it's tough -- I have to make tough choices about how to balance reading and writing workshop since this unit of study is only writing). Students start with just writing -- workable with any structure.  I allowed students to choose their own books to write about, with the only requirement being that their choice is fiction.  I gave them prompts for Entry #1, in which they had to reflect on their book choice.  I started ideas from the unit of study with Entry #2, which is just to see what students will do; will they draw?  Write a paragraph?  Plot out a chart or web?  Will they draw a blank without a  prompt?  What I found is that most students wrote paragraphs.  Even when the assignment suggested other kinds of writing, most chose the paragraph, and all chose summary.  I had my work cut out for me.  How would I move their thinking in new directions with this genre?

Most initial entries were paragraphs and summary

The way the authors of this unit suggest to start moving students' thinking is to have a gallery walk.  Since there were a few of my students whose entries were not just paragraphs, I was able to just use my own classes' work for this strategy.

Gallery Walk:

• Students set out their entries on the tables in the room (I don't have desks)
• Students browse entries with a partner, answering the questions:
• What are you noticing about the variety of responses?
• What did other writers do that I could try too

Students return to a full group and share out.  Since I didn't have much variety in entries, I decided to chart responses and even had students add ideas.  We ended up with a chart of possible ways to respond to reading that weren't necessarily just a paragraph.  I left students with homework for entry #3:  this entry must be deliberately different than entry #1 & #2.

The results were awesome!  Even though I noted that responses were still mostly summary, students began branching out in the ways they respond -- a great direction for informational texts, that aren't written with paragraphs only.