Correspondence Letters to Authors and Illustrators 5 th Grade Level Lindsey Stallings & Kerri Joyner ECED 4300 A Dr. Tonja Root, Fall 2008

Stage of Writing: Prewriting Name: Lindsey Stallings PLO: The students will complete a story map and use ideas and details from it to complete a letter to an author.

Stage or Writing: Prewriting GPS: ELA5W4 The student consistently uses a writing process to develop, revise, and evaluate writing. The student a. Plans and drafts independently and resourcefully.

Form of Writing Correspondence- Letters to Authors and Illustrators. You will read a book to the class called My Season With Penguins. The students will get online and look at the authors website. They will view their biographical information.

Form Of Writing The students will be able to share their likes, dislikes, and feelings with the author/illustrator. The students will then complete a graphic organizer.

Stage of Writing Prewriting The students will brainstorm ideas and questions to complete their graphic organizer. The students will then use that information to complete the drafting stage.

Graphic Organizer The students will complete a graphic organizer. This will allow the students to begin thinking about their correspondence letter.

Graphic Organizer

Dear Kate DiCamillo, I'm doing an author study book report in class and I was wondering if you could answer some of my questions. What are your favorite hobbies? What are you writing right now? I just love your books especially The Tale of Despereaux! Hope you are able to respond. Your biggest fan, Abigail, GA, 10

Citation Webb, S (2000). My Season With Penguins: An Antarctic Journal. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Saecker, Tasha. (2005). Kids lit: katie dicamillo interview. Retrieved November 07, 2008, from dslit/archives/ html dslit/archives/ html

Practice Activity The students will listen to a story and then complete the first two sections on their graphic organizer as a class. The first two sections include the title, author, and illustrator.

Assessment Activity The student will complete the remaining portions of their graphic organizer for an assessment.

Stage of Writing: Drafting Name: Kerri Joyner PLO: The students will create their first draft of the letter to the author or illustrator by using the information from their finished graphic organizer.

GPS: ELA5W1 The student produces writing that establishes an appropriate organizational structure, sets a context and engages the reader, maintains a coherent focus throughout, and signals a satisfying closure. The student

b. Writes texts of a length appropriate to address the topic or tell the story. c. Uses traditional structures for conveying information (e.g., chronological order, cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question).

Form of Writing: Correspondence There are five parts to a letter to the author or illustrator, they are: –Heading (address/date) –Salutation (Dear,) –Body (Information, questions) –Closing (Yours Truly, Sincerely, Your biggest fan, Your friend) –Signature (Name)

Stage of Writing: Drafting The students will use their graphic organizers to gather ideas and form complete sentences during the second stage of the writing process, which is drafting. This draft will be used to create the final/published piece.

Stage of Writing: Drafting Remember: –Spelling is not important. –Skip lines on the draft. –The draft will not be flawless, it will be revised and edited later.

Graphic Organizer Students will use their completed graphic organizer as a guide to complete their letter to the author or illustrator. Form the ideas and phrases from the graphic organizer into sentences.

Graphic Organizer

Dear Kate DiCamillo, I'm doing an author study book report in class and I was wondering if you could answer some of my questions. What are your favorite hobbies? What are you writing right now? I just love your books especially The Tale of Despereaux! Hope you are able to respond. Your biggest fan, Abigail, GA, 10

Explanation of the letter: This model is appropriate for a letter to an author/illustrator: Includes: salutation, body, closing, and signature. Is arranged based on the graphic organizer. Students can use this as a model.

Citation Saecker, Tasha. (2005). Kids lit: katie dicamillo interview. Retrieved November 07, 2008, from archives/ html archives/ html Webb, S (2000). My Season With Penguins: An Antarctic Journal. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Practice Activity Using the completed graphic organizer, explain the five parts of a letter. Model how to write the heading of the draft. Allow students to share ideas for the body of the letter with the class using the book My Season With Penguins.

Assessment Activity Students will use their graphic organizer from the book My Season With Penguins as a guide. They will construct a draft of a letter to an author or illustrator. Students will create sentences from the ideas on their graphic organizer.

Citation Webb, S (2000). My Season With Penguins: An Antarctic Journal. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.