Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

Appendix: Implementing District Standards

The language of the CCSS pays careful attention to author’s craft with an eye towards building craft in student writing. The Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay Seminar emphasized several connections between reading and writing. In seminar, Fellows explored the craft that many writers employ across a variety of nonfiction genres. When thinking about the compositional choices that authors made in texts we read, we identified and discussed them in seminar with an eye toward thinking about our own writing. Consider the language of one of the English Language Arts CCSS for sixth grade: CCSS.RI.6.3 Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text [e.g., through examples or anecdotes].⁴⁶ The work of seminar in this case closely mirrored the work that I am entrusted to engage in with my students. In seminar, this had Fellows reading creative nonfiction, discussing passages with peers, and thinking of the craft choices that the author has made.

Another CCSS that is relevant to this unit is RI.6.5: Analyze how a particular sentence, paragraph, chapter, or section fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the ideas.⁴⁷ This standard aligns perfectly with the type of reading of both profiles and personal experience essays that needs to occur to heighten student awareness of author’s craft, so that they in turn can make similar craft decisions in their own writing. This standard encourages the practice of pulling out key sections from the text to discuss author’s craft.

The final CCSS that I think is extremely important to my instructional approach in this unit is CCSS W.6.9b:  Apply grade 6 Reading standards to writing literary nonfiction [e.g., "Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not"].⁴⁸ This writing standard is written as a substandard, but it is important because it dictates a couple of key instructional elements that should be happening. The first observation looking at the standard is that there is a connection between the Reading and Writing standards; the standards are calling for the application of the Reading standards in writing. This means that students should be reading with an eye towards writer’s craft. The second implication of the standard is that literary nonfiction should not only be read, but it should also be produced by students. Literary nonfiction is not the typical five paragraph essay that many English Language Arts teachers still teach to write nonfiction text. In my classroom, the language of the standards dictates my instructional approach.