Informational Writers Workshop

Informational Writers Workshop

This writers workshop series focuses on writing a particular mode and genre with students. See other posts within this series such as personal narrative, short story, poetry, and more here.

This post is about crafting informational texts.

Informational texts can live in the world in a lot of different ways depending on how the writer/creator wants to share the information and who (the audience) they want to impact. The “text” (in language, video, image) can be organized in different text structures description, how-to or sequence of events, compare and contrast, problem-solution, cause and effect) and with various text features (title, headings, images, charts, voice, video).

Students need opportunities to discover all the ways that informational “essays” work in the real world so that they can then contribute their knowledge, expertise, and passion in the ways that serve them and their readers. Remember that all this is part of your informational writing standards including the independent writing standard where students write for a variety of purpose and audiences and writing process, which includes drafting, revision, and publication.

This is a 3 part tutorial.

Part 1 is a brief overview of informational composition that begins, as all of these tutorials will, with gathering and exploring mentor texts. This means noticing the text features (headings, leads, fonts, images, quotes, citations). I love experiencing mentor texts because it gives me permission not to be one version of a “good writer.” What I mean is that when you see all the options, you realize that there is no one way of writing an informational essay. What makes an essay “good” is one that does what you want or need it to do for the audience you are trying to reach. Who or what are you trying to inform and why?

Part 2 is gathering ideas from students’ notebooks and heartmaps for informational writing but also offering students possibilities in the purpose and form of their informational text creation. In my classes, students two 3-part blog series, which meant that they wrote about one topic in three different ways: description, how-to, and compare and contrast in an infographic. Examples are in the video.

Part 3 is support for teachers in modeling their own writing process with and alongside students. I show you how I used Kelly Gallagher’s method of taking one topic and turning it into 18 possibilities, and then show you some checklists that can inform your mini-lessons (or you can give them to students during their peer conferences–see that peer revision video). As always, I encourage teachers to write everything they ask students to write and to talk about the successes and challenges. Ask students to support you.

These three parts get students and teachers into drafting/revising, so then you can turn to the broader workshop tutorials for more processes such as peer revision, grammar mini-lessons in-context, grading with standards, and the publication party! Check out those videos when you are ready.

Here are the slides for informational writing to support your journey.

Here is a more about how to create an informational writing unit.

Subscribe to receive the latest posts.