Angela Johnson Unit of Study

In January all of Sky Class did a study of the works of Angela Johnson. This study was inspired by Authors as Mentors by Lucy Calkins and Amanda Hartman, which is part of Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum. Each of the teachers took a turn teaching a mini-lesson to the whole class, while students continued the study and their writings in the framework of language group. Tom and Natasha’s groups used the study as a way to focus on “small moments.” As my group had already done a unit on “small moment” stories, we used Angela Johnson’s work to inspire us in adding details to our writing and trying out other techniques we noticed in her writing.

Illustrations that Enhance Our Writing

Our latest Unit of Study has been focused on the question: What smart illustration decisions do author/illustrators make in their books? This study was inspired by Katie Wood Ray’s latest book, In Pictures and In Words: Teaching the Qualities of Good Writing Through Illustration Study. The children have been wonderful at looking at books and noticing the smart things being done in the illustrations to communicate information, feelings, character, storyline, mood, point of view, passage of time, and more. I have recorded a lot of their “noticings” on a chart. We are also using the chart to note when one of us tries something we’ve seen in the books. We keep the books we are using for the study in a basket where students can refer to them as needed. After Thanksgiving break, students will be asked to choose books they have written to publish. Each choice should be a book that can go into the basket with our study books, because of interesting illustration choices.