Making a YAG: Some Opinions

Here's the question I received:

Shona,

I attached the updated YAG.  I was hoping you could look at it again for me and let me know if it looks ok.  We are still struggling with 5.12 and 6.11.  We don't know if we can get them all in during 1 six weeks or not😞  Right now we have them marked as every six weeks and I know we discussed hitting everything every six weeks but what would that look like for writing specific compositions (or teaching them how to)?

As always your help is extremely appreciated!  Don't know what I'd do without you!

Here's my thoughts:

Dear Friend, I don’t know if I’m reading this correctly. Basically, it looks like you are teaching every TEK every six weeks…is that right?

There are a few ways you can go with teaching specific the composition types/genres. The biggest problem here is that you really don’t know what genre you need to compose until you know what you want to say and why.

1. Using a thematic approach. Select thematically linked texts. In the first six weeks, cover a variety of genres in the texts that you read, listing the characteristics and readers demands. I use the lead4ward bookmarks for this. Teach several idea generating prewriting strategies. I have these on my seed ideas section of the writing notebook on my digital portfolio here: https://www.bulbapp.com/u/pre-writing-and-planning. Have students start some drafts. Then teach genre shifting and selecting a genre based on audience. In the following six weeks, assign multiple genre works that require multiple genres in each submission. See Tom Romano’s work for samples. You’ll see some here too: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WuJ4FVoOUbSkUO_CrMQQyaST9VRroN1cb19dqUwzZtU/edit?usp=sharing Scroll down and look at the samples under the heading for Digital Writing Experience
2. Using a genre focus approach. Basically do the same as above, but have a lead focus/feature on the genres. I’m really a fan of this approach because it doesn’t spiral the practice and exposure toward mastery.
3. Use the textbook YAG. Seriously. It’s not an entirely bad idea.
4. Use an approach that centers on elements of the author’s purpose and craft strand. If you are teaching repetition, look at how repetition is used across the genres. Name the purposes. Then re-enter your writing workshop documents and play around with it. Compose genres that you haven’t messed around with.

Sounds like we need to have a face to face convo so I can show you how to do this. You up for that?

Shona