Writing Feature Articles - Lesson .
Writer’s Work Time (
min)
Using the handout and their writers’ notebooks, students brainstorm roles in their lives, identify their
unique experiences and expertise and write ideas for possible topics for their feature articles. Students
should choose topics with which they are familiar and have personal experience.
Conferring and Di?erentiation
During Writer’s Work Time, determine if student has:
?? a list of roles and associated personal expertise and focused topics that might be
suitable for their feature articles
??
a written re?ection about experiences related to the ideas “circled.”
Using the chart below as a guide, conduct guided groups. On the Conferring Log, record
what you ?nd, what you teach and the next steps for the students.
What you might ?nd:
Suggested Approaches:
Limited ideas for topics
Prompt with questions: Use questions that dig below the surface to
help struggling students brainstorm roles and other aspects of their lives
that they can write about. For example, if a student writes, I am a big
sister; help her deepen her thinking by asking her to describe what she
knows about being a big sister. Is it dif?cult? Easy? Why? Being more
speci?c will help students identify a topic that is focused and interesting
to readers.
Use DI handout: For the Experienced student who ?nds brainstorming
challenging, provide Brainstorm Roles – DI (Handout 1.2b). The student
should think about what his/her roles are in the family, at school, in the
community and identify a memorable experience related to that role.
Provide another model: Student can also look at KC and JT’s
Notebooks in the Online Classroom to see how they completed a similar
activity.
Ready for more
Provide extension: Remind students that after they ?nish creating
the brainstorming lists, they should write a paragraph or two about an
experience associated with one of their topic ideas. This pre-writing will
help students to identify if the topic is something they know a lot about.
Sharing and Lesson Summary (
min)
Reconvene the class. Ask for student volunteers to tell the class a few of the roles on their brainstormed
lists. Then, if they have not done so already, have students return to their lists to select one or two topics
to explore in writing in their notebooks. Students should write about a speci?c experience they had
related to the topic. This is one initial way of determining if they have suf?cient knowledge about and
interest in the topic.