Teaching a writing mini lesson effectively requires a unique structure that is a little bit different from a reading mini lesson. I developed this structure to use during writing workshop in order to maintain the use of modeling and mentor texts.
Teaching Point
Your mini lesson needs a specific teaching point (objective) with a tight focus. A mini lesson is five to twenty minutes.
Connect
Begin your lesson by connecting what your students will learn with something they already know. This connection acts as an introduction to the lesson; a focus. Your connection is only one to three sentences long.
Model
Modeling writing is crucial, but in a mini lesson you don't have a lot of time to model by writing in front of your students. Write your modeled piece before your lesson, or try to find a patch of mentor text from literature. Your modeled piece doesn't need to be long -a sentence or paragraph demonstrating the techniques you want to teach is plenty. Show the model and explain the writing technique used in the piece by "noticing" how it's done in a mentor text, or talking about your thinking process when you wrote your modeled example. If your piece and literature patch is short you can use both in your lesson.
Try It
My students bring their writer's notebook to the lesson zone (on the floor in front of my chart stand). After I teach the writing technique, I ask them to spend a few minutes trying it out in their notebooks. Next they turn and share their pieces with partners, and then I ask for three people to share a good example they heard.
Apply It
Of course all of this means nothing if students do not apply the technique to their writing. I give them the task of going back into their current writing project and finding a place to incorporate the new technique. We add the new writing technique to our writer's toolbox.
WRITING WORKSHOP PACK
15 WRITING RUBRICS
MULTI-GENRE WRITING PROJECT
WRITING UNIT - TEACHING THE TRAIT OF IDEAS
PEER CRITIQUE DISCUSSION CARDS
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