Context:
Students produce written products that disseminate information. Informative writing could take the form of a set of instructions, a research paper, I-search essays, journals, manuals, or news reports. This mode of writing requires students to complete detailed research, to exclude irrelevant information, and to organize information logically.
Curriculum:
Standards for the English Language Arts
Sponsored by NCTE and IRA
http://www.n cte.org/about/over/standards
5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
Attachments:
None
Other materials:
- Tools for writing - paper, pencils, pens, and a comfortable and quiet place to write
- Ideas for writing - A list of ideas is provided in the instructions and extension sections. Other ideas may be developed by visiting the "About the Species" sections on all the virtual field trips.
Instructional sequence:
- To begin the informative writing assignment, students need a topic, requirements for the paper form, and research time online or in a library.
- A list of topics or ideas for writing may be found in the extension section of this strategy.
- Once students have been given the assignment, their writing should follow a logical process:
- 1 - Prewriting - Students brainstorm ideas, complete graphic organizers, gather research before they begin the actual task of writing. For informative writing, this step in the writing process is a good place to teach organization. Students may employ notecards or outlines during this phase of writing.
- 2 - Drafting - Students should sit in a quiet location and write.
- 3 - Editing - During the editing process, students will revise their writing and may even get assistance from a peer or a teacher.
- 4 - Publishing - Writing is meant to be shared, so in the final stage students produce a polished copy of their work and share it with others.
Extensions:
Ideas for writing:
- 1 - Recall a past event from your life in a journal. See the Journaling Strategy and the Field Diaries for specific examples.
- 2 - Write an informative brochure on Hurricanes. Explain how hurricanes develop. What steps should people take to protect themselves and their animals from these storms?
- 3 - Create a field guide of all of the animals that live in your town. Field guides can also be written about plants or the fish that live near you.
- 4 - Write a "How to" essay. For example: How to ...plant a butterfly garden, build a fish pond, or camp without harming nature.
- 5 - Write a news broadcast and record your class performing the script.
- 6 - Create an annotated atlas of your town designating locations where wildlife live, suburbs, businesses, water shed, and historic sites.
Assessment:
Rubistar can be used to create holistic scoring rubrics. The web address for Rubistar is http://rubistar.4teachers.org.
Literacy advancement:
Students must deal with an enormous amount of information when they write to inform. The value of writing in this mode is student awareness of the seriousness of plagiarism. Students learn to logically order many facts and they learn to put these facts into their own words. A final lesson learned can be the evaluation of content. Students determine what facts are important enough to be a part of their product and what facts must be omitted.
Author: Isenhour, Kim
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