Christina's plan

Overview of Planning and Teaching Sequence
Name: Christina Denis
Title of Planning and Teaching Sequence: Mystery Writing
Grade: 6
Purpose: To have students write a mystery story, illustrate or animate it, then present their finished product to their class. This gives each student the opportunity to share their ideas and receive peer and teacher feedback immediately.
Rationale: Students will expand on their previous knowledge of the elements of mystery stories. Students will be given the opportunity to “publish” their stories in a few ways: by doing both the text and illustrations individually using student’s own printing or handwriting and drawings, by typing the text while doing illustrations by hand, or typing the text and using computer software to animate. Allowing the students to choose the mode to present their story will help to engage them in the completion of the project from beginning to end. Students will be encouraged to get excited about their stories and to share their ideas throughout the process. By completing this sequence students will have the opportunity to create their own mystery story from beginning to end. Students will be given the opportunity to share their work on numerous occasions while it is in progress and will also be provided with immediate feedback. Finally they will be given the opportunity to present the completed final product to the entire class, showcasing their work on a more formal basis.
Overview:
Developing understanding of mystery stories
• Read examples of mystery stories

• Show the elements of mystery stories. ~ Main element is suspense (Buss & Karnowski. p. 32).
• Explain how each of the elements are necessary to create effect
• Discuss how to compose texts according to audience and purpose
• Draw on examples from readings to compose a mystery story.
• Present finished story in a meaningful manner
Capture ideas
Note and develop initial ideas
• Explore ideas for problems that could be used for mystery stories.
• Explore ideas for characters for mystery stories.
• Explore ideas for setting for mystery stories.
• Record ideas using notes, drawings and mapping.
• Capture ideas in a variety of ways (illustrations, animations, jotted notes and drawings.
Plan
Develop, record and structure initial ideas
• Demonstrate how to use the elements which are necessary when writing a mystery story.
• Model some illustrations and or animations that could be used for the mystery story being created.
• Model strategies for presenting story to class.
• Show plans, notes, maps and drawings
Show how to organize ideas using a variety of strategies such as charts, lists or Draft
Develop ideas from the plan into a structured text
• Create first draft of mystery story.
• Design illustrations and or animations.
• Model strategy being used for presentation using examples from work already completed.
• Demonstrate how changes can be made to both the story and the presentation of it.
• Show how to use illustration and or animations choices to engage the audience.
• storyboards.
Revise
Alter and improve the draft
• Refer to examples from shared readings to evaluate whether the criteria for original story has been met.
• Ask peer partners to asses and review texts using agreed upon criteria.
• Demonstrate how to add or remove text and animation to clarify meaning.
• Show how changes can be made to presentation using available software options.
• Model organization strategy for taking suggestions from peer conferences and incorporating them into the final presentation.
Proof read
Check design and layout, spelling and punctuation
Demonstrate how to check:
➢ Visual text for content, colour, cropping of images, effects, layout and composition, image placement and visual emphasis.
➢ Moving images for fades and edits, cropping, timing of clips, visual effects.
➢ Non-linear text to ensure hyperlinks, action buttons and animation sequences work.
➢ Written text for spelling, punctuation and paragraphing.
Present
Prepare and present a final copy to the class
• Discuss decisions made about final presentation, including choice in strategy used to present (why this strategy was chosen).
• Discuss how final copy will be evaluated using models.
• Publish completed text:
➢ Using decided upon strategy such as:
• Hand written and illustrated.
• Hand written and computer illustrated.
• Typed but illustrated by students.
• Typed and animated on the computer.
• Present published product to class.











References
Bearne, E. & Wolstencroft, H. 2007. Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing:
Multimodal Literacy 5-11. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Buss, K. & Karnowski, L. 2000. Reading and Writing Literary Genres. Newark:
International Reading Association.
Cunningham, M. (Ed.). (1997). Fright Write: It`s a Mystery to Me. Chicago: RGA
Publishing.
Iveson, M. & Robinson, S. (Ed.). Mystery and Wonder Anthology. Scarborough: Prentice-
Hall Canada Inc.
Alberta Education English Language Arts Program of Studies. Retrieved July 21, 2003,
from http://www.ednet.edc.gov.ab.ca/studentprograms/
Annotation:
The majority of ideas for this planning and teaching sequence came for the textbook (mostly for the chart on pages 32&33) and the Buss and Karnowski book Reading and Literacy Genres. The other two books included have some examples of mystery stories that could be useful when teaching a unit on mystery writing.