Understanding A Small Moment Story
Cecilia Woodbury
Ninety Minutes
Kindergarten
Common Core Standard:
Writing
W.K.3 Using a combination of writing, drawing and dictating to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.
Content Concepts:
Students will pick a story from their writers notebook, focus on a part of that story and use the Small Moments Chart to illustrate and write a small moments narrative.
GLO
Effective Communicator
Contributes effectively through speaking, drawing and writing.
Objective:
Students will write a narrative with some details sequencing beginning, middle and end of a single event.
Assessments:
Student Observation: Did the student focus on a single event?
Student Work: Did the student use a combination of drawing and writing to narrate the single event?
Resources:
Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing
By Lucy Calkins and Abby Oxenhorn
A Chair For My Mother
By Vera B. Williams
Beginning Procedures:
1. Refer to “A Chair for My Mother”
2. After skimming the story focus on the part of the story where the little girl is remembering about coming home from the store after buying shoes and seeing the fire. Pay attention to all the details Vera B. Williams uses while reading.
3. Model how Vera B. Williams could have told the story in two or three simple sentences.
4. Reread to show students how one small moment in time was extended over two pages.
5. Ask students to think about the small details Vera B. Williams used to help focus our attention on that small moment.
6. Take comments from students and embellish on them. For example, “She names the kinds of shoes they bought. Pumps and sandals”, “Yes, she did describe the color of the tulips.” , “Lots of smoke”, Orange flames”, “Mama grabs my hand”,
7. Tell the students, “Today I will show you how I write about a small moment in my life, I made this chart to help me remember the steps.’
Show the chart,
Writing Small Moments
1. Writers think of something to write about.
2. They focus on one small part.
3. They sketch it on paper.
4. They write words.
Pretend to be thinking about my weekend run.
a. “I’m going to write about my run on Sunday. That was more than a small moment though.”
Bring my hands up into a telescope.
b. “So, I’m going to zoom in on one small part of my run and picture it in my mind.”
Show my sketches touching each one and telling the parts of my small moment.
c. “I sketched the pictures to help me remember the parts of my small moment.”
Have students help you write the words to your story.
d. “ O.K. now you can help me write the words.
8. Tell the students, “Today during writers workshop think about taking a small moment from one of your previous stories and use it to write a small moments story. Remind students that small moment stories have to stay in one place and in one moment and they have to be in order. Have students look through their writers notebook to find a narrative they can draw a small moment from. Refer back to chart.
Middle Procedures
Students will pick a previous narrative and focus on one part of it. Teacher will circulate around the room offering suggestions and encouragement. Notice when a student has decided on a small moment and stop the class to notice. “I see _____________ has decided to take small moment from his _____________ story.
Closing Procedures
Ask students to share their stories in their small groups and decide if these are small moment stories. 1. Do they stay in one place and in one time? 2. Does the story stay in order? Two or three students will be asked to share their small moment story.
Modifications for Diverse Learners
Small group will collaborate on a small moment story with the SPED Aide.
Three Lens Letter for Feedback for Teaching Demonstration:
ReplyDeleteAloha e na College
Date: 6/ 23 /11
Title of Lesson: a small moment narrative
This lesson made me feel fantastic to find the different voices in the characters of the stories being read and then doing them.
List of best practices:
1. The activity was terrific and try this with kindergarteners? Yipe but with the engaging in the reading of the book. WOW LOL
2. This might work with math because they count coins from the jar.
3. Kids like to talk about their small moments and this story fits perfectly. They don’t always right all the details.
My thoughts on this lesson could be applied in other contexts such as other reading areas such as reading theater using puppets.
Mahalo for your time and effort, on developing this lesson that we may use your ideas to enhance our way of becoming a life long learner.
Dear Cecilia,
ReplyDeleteJune 23, 2011
Creating a Small Moment
Thank you for your detailed lesson. Your choice of literature nicely prepared the stage for your objective: the small moment. I liked how you broke down the parts into clear, manageable chunks.
Best practices: visual elements and drawing, integrating literature and writing, and clear directives. Thank you for engaging us with this lesson!
Sincerely
Jessica Dahlke
Dear Cecilia
ReplyDeleteI loved your lesson on small moments. We do this with our first graders and they hopefully are able to add more details to their small moments. I
Best practices:
Whole group reading and focus
Model
Individual work time
Review of what wanted: think, focus, sketch THEN write.
Small group and whole group share
This lesson was great to see what I can do for students who are not at grade level to scaffold for them. This is great as well because it really helps me see how my lessons at the beginning of the year.
Thank you!
Jessie
Aloha Cecilia,
ReplyDeleteGreat book selection. I like how it had a hint of something-not-so-nice
(house burned down) without actually focusing on the burnt down home,
and focusing on saving grandmother and cat. The lives that really matter.
Lots of best practices: checking frequently for understanding as you're
reading, rereading the changing point, questioning for details, modeling
your own small moment, phonetically writing it out, then letting us play
with our own small moment. Good definition of small moment: stay
in one place at one time. MAHALO.
June 23, 2011
ReplyDeleteDear Cecilia,
Thank you for sharing your lesson on small moments. It was fun to see how kinders begin with the small moments and how first grade expands on it. Your teaching strategies exhibited best practices, such as: linking reading and writing, teacher modeling, explaining with details the objectives (then revisiting them), independent work time, sharing work, using visuals to teach, and leaving up visual directions for us. Your lesson can easily be used in my classroom. Thank you for sharing this with us!
Kristi
Dear Cecilia,
ReplyDeleteJune 23, 2011
Small Moments
Thank you for sharing your small moment lesson with us. It’s very helpful to see how you do it since I have to do the same thing as well. It was also nice that you drew the pictures first so that you didn’t have to waist time on that.
You did a great job of breaking the lesson down and going step by step. The instructions were clear and easy to follow.
I will definitely use this lesson next year as it would be very helpful in teaching small moments.
Thank you!
Dear Teacher Cecilia,
ReplyDeleteGreat job introducing your “Small Moment” lesson. I loved your introduction and clear explanation and that you were super prepared with having your pictures already done. You did a great job modeling your story and walking us through exactly what you wanted us to do. Having your checklist posted in an easy to see place to refer back to was helpful to us as it would be for your students.
Giving us positive feedback while we were working demonstrated best practices and provided lots of encouragement to keep working. Small moments are always a challenge to teach so I appreciated you sharing all of your techniques and strategies as they will be helpful to me in my future lessons with it.
Thanks so much for your enthusiastic lesson! Patti
Understanding a Small Moment Story
ReplyDelete6/23/2011
Aloha Cecelia --
I loved the story you chose and the example within the story to illustrate the small moment concept.
"Best Practices" I observed in this lesson included:
* use of attention-getting signals
* waiting for attention before starting
* reviewing expectations for student behavior during teacher reading book
* using quiet, calm voice (forcing close attention)
* opportunity to practice, for sharing and considering if it met the criteria, author chair
I think this could be used to consider any number of events -- possibly even to help determine "what happened" when someone gets hurt or gets "hurt feelings" within a classroom or playground setting.
Thanks for sharing a great lesson!
~jeanne
6/23
ReplyDeleteA small moment
Aloha Cecilia,
Thanks for the lesson on small moments. I think its a really good idea to use text and pictures as a tool to help students think about writing.
The pictures with steps provide a good visual cue for students for all students, not just kindergardneners.
Best Practices
Using visual as well as oral cues.
Monitoring for comprehension.
Keep up the good work,
marissa
Cecilia, I will start adding more detail to stretch
ReplyDeletemy story and make it more exciting. I love the ideas that everyone has presented to help us all improve. What a blessed group we have.
Mahalo,
Colleen
Hi Cecilia
ReplyDelete6/23/11
Small Moment lesson
I liked the story and you did a great job reading the book. You have a great reading voice. You explained the small moment in the story and I liked your example.
You used many best practices; guided instruction, "I do, you do, we do", positive reinforcement, checking for understanding, and opportunities for students to share their stories.
This activity could be modified for other grade levels, by having them write a series of small moments and putting them together in a story, working on sequence.
It was a really fun lesson, thank you!