Ways Six Areas of Language Arts in the Classroom

Language arts is more than just reading and writing. Language arts is composed of six main areas: reading, viewing, listening, speaking, writing, and visual representation.

• Reading – Reading occurs when students draw meaning from and understand the written word. Students form literature circles in which they read and discuss a book in small groups. During silent reading time, students read independently with the book of their choice. We also read selected novels together as a class and stories from our reading textbook.
  Example: We are reading Number the Stars, a novel about the Holocaust by Lois Lowry. This ties in with our theme of Taking a Stand, and it fits in with the social studies curriculum.
  
• Viewing – Viewing involves observing and looking at words and pictures. Students view bulletin boards, posters, word walls, and flashcards on a daily basis.
  
• Listening – When students hear and process sounds, they are listening. Students must actively listen during group sharing time, literature circles, teacher’s lessons, and other group activities.
  
• Speaking – Students who are relaying a message verbally to each other are speaking. The others must listen, so speaking and listening go together. During class meetings, students have opportunities to speak their opinions. They also practice speaking when discussing things in small groups, giving presentations to the class, asking questions, and sharing their writing.
  
• Writing – Writing involves recording language on paper. Students write over topics of their choice during writing workshop. Writing activities in our class include persuasive magazine articles, descriptive poetry, and biographies of famous people. Reading and writing go hand in hand.
  Example: We are writing short descriptive writing pieces called “Guess My Emotion.” The students describe events that make them feel a certain way (I feel this way when I forget my homework), and then the other students must try to guess what emotion the student is feeling (frustration).
  
• Visual Representation – Students displaying information and pictures are using visual representation. Students or the teacher may create posters, bulletin boards, websites, videos, or PowerPoint presentations to display information.
  

Ways to Encourage Writing at Home and School

• Practice writing letters to friends, pen pals, even the tooth fairy!
  


• When you go on a family vacation, help your child write down your adventures in a journal. This not only encourages writing, but will serve as a great memento.
  


• Create a how-to guide together on an activity you enjoy doing with your child. For instance, How-To Build a Birdhouse or How-To Play Football.
  


• Write encouraging notes to your child on Post-Its and stick them on places in the child’s room for the child to discover. Encourage your child to write you notes too.
  


• Display a family message board and calendar where anyone can write important information or funny messages to share with the family.
  


• Display your child's school writing on the refrigerator.


• Have a bedroom decorating party and make posters with your child of things they enjoy.


• Encourage your child to write kind notes to his or her classmates, teachers, or other school personnel.

The Five Text Types

The five main types of writing are what we call "Text Types." These include Technical, Narrative, Informational (Expository), Persuasive, and Poetry.

1. Technical – Technical writing tells how to do something. It is written in steps with short sentences. Examples include how-to books, recipes, and instructions. Here is an example of technical text, a recipe for lemonade.

Perfect Lemonade Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 cup water (for the simple syrup)
1 cup lemon juice
3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

Method
1 Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely.
2 While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice.
3 Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.
Serve with ice, sliced lemons.
Serves 6.

2. Narrative – Narrative writing is the traditional story format with characters, setting, plot, and climax. Examples of narrative writing include folk tales, novels, and short stories.

3. Informational (Expository) – This type of writing shares facts and information about a topic. Unlike narrative, it is true/non-fiction. Examples include magazine articles, informational books, newspaper articles, and encyclopedias.

4. Persuasive – Persuasive writing attempts to convince the reader to believe or do something. Many persuasive texts relate to the environment, health, and safety. Examples of persuasive text are letters to the Editor, advertisements, speeches, and Editorials.

5. Poetry – Poetry is a short text that tells about an experience, place, or item. It is usually very short and contains colorful language. Examples of poetry are haikus, limericks, and sonnets.

Here’s an example of a poem by Jack Prelutsky, a poet known for writing children’s books:

LOUDER THAN A CLAP OF THUNDER
By Jack Prelutsky
from THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
Louder than a clap of thunder,
louder than an eagle screams,
louder than a dragon blunders,
or a dozen football teams,
louder than a four-alarmer,
or a rushing waterfall,
louder than a knight in armor
jumping from a ten-foot wall.
Louder than an earthquake rumbles,
louder than a tidal wave,
louder than an ogre grumbles
as he stumbles through his cave,
louder than stampeding cattle,
louder than a cannon roars
louder than a giant’s rattle,
that’s how loud my father SNORES!

Writing Center

Our writing center is a place for students to get creative and inspired. Located next to our word wall,* the writing center houses a large table and four chairs. The clearly labeled shelves along the wall contain anything the students will need for writing: pencils, pens, lined paper, construction paper, letter stamps, small dry erase boards with markers, etc. Students can also find art supplies used for drawing and publishing in the cabinets next to the table. Supplies include cardstock, crayons, markers, colored pencils, three-hole punch, brads, and string. The walls around the writing center display posters, signs, and other messages to encourage writing. Next to the table sits the author’s chair, with a rug in front of it. Students share their writing from the author’s chair during the last part of each writing workshop.

*Word wall – the word wall is where we display words, in alphabetical order, that we have been discussing in class. Students can refer to this word wall for correct spelling of a word or as a prompt on a topic to write about.

Writing Workshop

Because I know that frequent writing practice increases the students’ confidence as writers, we spend an hour everyday on writing workshop. The writing workshop has three main components: minilesson, writing groups, and sharing time.

1. Minilesson – During the first 15 minutes of writing workshop, I teach a minilesson to the entire class. Depending on student needs, I may teach a specific writing skill or strategy (such as how to summarize a piece of reading). During this time, I may also read a piece of literature to the students that I think demonstrates a writing concept or genre.
2. Writing groups – The bulk of our writing workshop time is spent in writing groups. During this 30-minute block of time, students work on their writing, talk with peers about revision and editing changes, or conference with me. Each student may be at a different stage in their writing, but all are working on moving to the next step.
3. Sharing time – The last 15 minutes of writing workshop are devoted to sharing. The whole class sits down in the writing corner and listens to each other share selections of their published writing. Students may also share problems they have had with their writing at any stage and ask each other for help.

*How I Track Student Progress* Writing workshop involves a lot independent student work, so I have a few methods for tracking student progress. I keep conference writing record for each student where I monitor student improvement and look for areas that the student needs to work on.

The Writing Process

In our classroom, writing is viewed as a process, not just a product. We understand that words do not just appear on the paper in final draft form. We must progress through many stages to achieve our best quality writing. The stages of the writing process are:

1. Rehearsal – Rehearsal is prewriting. At this stage, the students will brainstorm to pick a topic. They may also create a story web to map out ideas, discuss their topic with peers, or conference with the teacher to decide on a main focus for their writing.
2. Drafting – Drafting is when the writers put their ideas and thoughts down on paper. During this stage, ideas and content are the number one goal; we will worry about spelling and grammar later. We focus on flow and letting our ideas come out on the paper.
3. Revision – Revision involves adding, deleting, or moving information to the piece of writing. When students revise, they look at the overall content of their piece of writing. They ask themselves questions like:
“What unnecessary information can be removed?”
“How can I add more supporting details?”
“Does this paragraph need to be put at the beginning of my piece?”
Students will reflect on their own writing and ask each other for suggestions on what to revise. I encourage them to first revise their writing before coming to me for a conference.
4. Editing – Unlike revising, editing focuses on conventions such as spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Editing is done by the students, their peers, and the teacher.
5. Publishing – Our final step is publishing. This stage is all about preparing the writing to be suitable to share with others. A final product is created, whether it be a stapled book, brochure, part of a class book, or a paper displayed on the bulletin board. Once students have published their writing, they have the opportunity to sit in our “author’s chair” and share it with the class.

Welcome to the Blog!

Dear Parents and Students,

Welcome to my blog! I hope this site is helpful to you in regard to my language arts curriculum. I will soon be posting information on the stages of the writing process, elements of writing workshop, information on the classroom writing center, and a brief discussion on the five text types. Other postings will include helpful tips on encouraging writing at school and home and ways the six areas of language arts are incorporated in my classroom. Stay tuned!