Puzzle Pieces

1. Puzzle Pieces Exploring Reconstruction of Mentor Texts and Student Writing as a Method to Facilitate Understanding of Purpose and Structure

2. Dilemma • Many of my students are able to identify purpose and can generally articulate organizational patterns • Narrative, persuasive, expository, Instructional • Cause and effect, compare and contrast, chronological • Many of my students are unable to write to specific purpose in an organized manner • Mostly reflective or loosely narrative • Ideas seemingly placed at random • Evidence non-existent or disconnected from main idea Is this a problem for anyone else?

3. Prior Instructional Assumptions • Reading and writing are intertwined skills; one must always accompany the other.   • Using published, exemplary texts, also known in as “mentor texts,” is a good way to improve anyone’s writing. • The best way to use mentor texts is to have students analyze them through disassembly. • The two best methods of disassembly are dialectical journaling and text annotation • Once students have shown they can disassemble a text, they can move on to writing their own purposeful, well-organized pieces. What was practical result of these assumptions? Students dutifully produced façades. They found It was not necessary to critically read the text to meet the assignment requirements

4. What’s the Problem? • I reflected on my own assumptions and made the following observations: • My instruction is almost exclusively directive • My assignments are prescriptive and focused entirely on production of a gradeable artifact • My assignments are all isolated, individual activities • I drive all group discussion Take a few minutes to use Attachment 1: Instructional Obs Form, to comment on why these might be potential areas to investigate.

5. Proposed Solution There is a glaring lack of student intellectual engagement outside the narrow confines of the finished product. Even though I might need to address the way I approach journaling and annotation, I feel there is no need to discard them. I do need to try some form of facilitated, cooperative, self-directed deconstruction of text. Paradoxically enough, instead of disassembling textual puzzles, students will put the puzzles together.

6. Process Overview • Part 1: Using Mentor Texts • The teacher locates and disassembles a range of mentor texts that exemplify various types and purposes for writing. • Students receive only a portion of a piece of writing and are then required as a class to work together to reassemble the mentor texts in correct order • Student groups then read their text as the rest of the class listens and writes their conclusions about the topic of the piece, purpose, and key details in order of presentation. We will accomplish Part 1 today.

7. Process Overview • Part 2: Using Student Writing • Students choose or be assigned a purpose for writing from among those “reconstructed” mentor pieces. • The writing should be of similar length to the mentor text and the final draft must be electronically stored. • Students disassemble their own writing and then (preferably) another class will run through the same reconstruction process as was accomplished with the mentor texts. We will not accomplishPart 2, but will discuss implications at the end of the demonstration.

8. Puzzle Pieces You will each receive a portion of a larger, complete text. It is a “puzzle piece” that fits with other pieces to form a whole story or article. You will find the matching pieces, then put them in order as a group.

9. Puzzle Pieces: Orient the Text (5 mins) • When you get your “piece,” write your name on the sheet in the top left corner above the printed text. • Read the text and annotate. What type of writing it? Where might it go in the story or article? What might its purpose be?

10. Puzzle Pieces: Match and Build (15 mins) • Move around the room to find other students who have the puzzle pieces that connect to yours. • Form your team in one area of the room. • As a team, put your entire puzzle in order. • Give each sheet a number corresponding to its place in the larger written work. • Write each sheet order number in the upper right corner across from your name.

11. Puzzle Pieces: How Close Did We Get? • Teams will read their completed puzzles • Those who are listening will respond using A2: Listener Response Form

12. Puzzle Pieces: How Well Would This Work? • How will students be able to use this in their own writing? • Why is Part 2 necessary? • What is the application potential at various grade levels? • What is the application potential for various subject areas? • In what ways can this idea be extended? • What scaffolding might need to be considered?