Entry 12: Learning About Genres & Mentor Texts: What It All Means

Before this course, I never realized how important it is to teach students specific genres and how it can be done in such a fun engaging manner! How as educators we can create an awareness of authors message, word choice, and form. My learning has been transformed for specific genres, based on my ability to collaborate and further read/view specific text types (like Tompkins examples) for clarity. Writers workshop has allowed me the chance to expand on what I know/thought I knew, and the opportunity to gain interactive feedback, in addition to in-the moment support. 

Two genres I thought I knew well were narrative and poetry writing. Much of my prior knowledge was on the look of the genre and not necessarily an in-depth inside view of how to write in that specific style. I did not realize how detailed both genres are! I always thought they were the more "easy" genres to understand and do. For narrative writing, I used to just picture a story written from the characters point of view or an outside author-like voice. Everything seemed very surface level (location character is at, name, begging/middle/end parts = "good" story). Narrative writing was not anything "fancy", as it was just writing out my/or one's thoughts on a story in factual manner. Though I was unavailable for the poetry groups presentation, often when I heard the term poetry in the past, I just pictured words rhyming and shorter sentences. I thought of old written English and how poetry can be confusing at times. It was not until I looked at Tompkins, that I realized all of the different examples/subcategories. That poems can represent prior and past knowledge, learning/personal goals and inquires. 

For narrative writing, my peers colored coded chart handout for setting, characters, and point of view was a great tool that opened my eyes to what students need to learn! I myself did exactly the same line of thinking as Tompkins (2012) suggests, "Often they think that setting is simply where the story takes place... buy there are three other dimensions as well: weather, time and time period"(p. 183). My group had selected the text I grabbed from the table, a picture book about the story that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh. It was a really captivating tale! I found myself searching for what the weather was like, the time of day or period (for the setting), and I started to understand the character (behavior) of the main characters better when I was able to focus on their monologue and dialogue. From this activity, with my peers we looked at the language used in addition to the pictures. I pulled and synthesized from the text itself, to understand more of the story (the characters actions/what was happening & why/etc.), and shared my thinking with my classmates. 

Having the chance to quick sketch, I found to be hard! Representing the time period, especially when time jumps years in this book, was tricky in a pictorial format. Yet, I discovered that I was able to focus on the most important time dates to include in that picture. It made me realize a question that newly formed for me: what will I teach my students to focus on, if they pick a text (like this) where there is no one set location or timeframe, but it continues to change? My whole group was a tad stuck on what should we draw for the quick sketch, how can we show a four year time period, and two locations (war/zoo/etc.). We agreed to draw specific key parts (like a Zoo sign, incorporate London and a sunny sky with the date). My peers also did a great job explaining how we would find the point of view, an area with four different styles (that I never even realized existed). For this genre, I came to have new realizations based on my ability to draw, vocalize (what I observed in the text relation to narrative writing techniques), and collaborate with my peers.

For poetry writing, I was unable to attend our class but I did engage in the reading and reviewed my peers shared materials. I wanted to acknowledge that I never realized HOW MANY poems exist!! It spanned 12 pages, which shocked me because I often think of rhyming or the occasional open style writing called free verse (as seen in Tompkins from pages 156-168). From looking at these poems, I had never heard a good number of them, but the one that

I was interested in was the "I used to... but now..." poem (Tompkins, 2012, p. 159). I think this poem would be a very powerful tool for students, as they can reflect on their prior knowledge to their newly learned knowledge about a variety of topics! Having the opportunity to compare ones understandings would be a great way to develop a deeper understanding of a topic (while learning how to write in the genre of poetry). I appreciate how the poetry group incorporated how the mentor poem texts selected made us feel. Poems do often try to invoke emotions and I feel that it was a good opportunity for the class to see how poetry is all about form and word choice (appealing to the purpose/audience). I also found it very interesting how poetry can be fitting for struggling readers, due to it's design to "be rhythmic, creative, unusual, and accessible" (Concannon-Gibney, 2018, p. 431). 

When I look at mentor texts, I see how to engage students in hearing/seeing what the genre can sound and look like. I see how text can take on specific looks (like ZOOM, ZIP, VROOM) from Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee, for the descriptive genre. From class, I have come to appreciate the collaborative moments where we worked with our peers to look at a text (like my experience during the narrative genres presentation). My thinking was provided further support or shifted when my peers shared their understandings. Mentor texts in my eyes have taught me (and will come to teach my students) to "realize that authors make choices when they write, and this awareness grows after experimenting with various writing purposes, audiences, and genres" (Tompkins, 2012, p. 16). Imagine if students had the chance to write their own mentor texts, through a genre they feel confident in and/or want to learn more about? I think that would be a very powerful opportunity! 

References

Concannon‐Gibney. (2019). Immersing first graders in poetry: A genre study approach. The Reading Teacher, 72(4), 431–443. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1728