Rogers Education Consulting

K-12 Literacy Professional Development

Modeling Generating Ideas with Heart Maps in Elementary

We are getting Writers’ Workshop kicked off school-wide – K-12! So exciting! In the first week, the elementary students and teachers were busy setting up their writing environment. This week is all about getting the little writers writing!

My first goal was helping the students know that they are all storytellers! So, I created heart maps with the students (Heard, 2016). My lesson followed these steps:

  1. I ask the students, “what are some things that are important to you?” This resulted in dead silence, so I said that my family was important to me; my mom, husband, kids, sister, etc. That got the ball rolling and they all started talking about what was important to them.
  2. Then I modeled filling in my heart map while explaining to the students a little bit about why each item was important to me. I modeled talking about things I do in my free time that I love, people I love, places I love, and moments in my life that are important. When I did this, I made sure to have many important points on my heart map that the students could relate to and get them thinking of their own important people, places, events, etc.
  3. Next, they filled in their own heart maps. I explained that they had to be 100% silent for one whole minute while they started their heart map. This helps all the kids get started. In reality, it was closer to two minutes that went by in silence, but they were busily writing! At the end of the time, they shared with their tablemates. Then they could add more ideas to their own heart map if they were inspired!
  4. I closed the lesson by affirming their work and their role as storytellers. I said, “WOW! We all have so many stories to share. Writers share the things that they are the most passionate about and look at all the things we love! We are all storytellers! Tonight I want you to think about which one of your many stories you want to share first! Tomorrow we are going to share our first story.”

They were pumped!

 

 

Check the next post for how we used our Heart Maps!

Heard, Georgia. Heart maps: Helping students create and craft authentic writing. Heinemann, 2016.

You may be interested in these posts from the same category.

Shared Writing: Bringing the Magic of Collaboration Back to the Classroom

Shared writing is a fantastic, collaborative approach that brings students into the writing process. Imagine sharing the cognitive load (and sometimes the literal pen) with your class – it’s a powerful way to model writing skills, strategies, and even the mechanics of encoding. It’s one of those teaching techniques that packs a serious punch. In […]

Empowering Your Students Through Summarizing: A Lesson with “Thank You, Ma’am”

Hello, dedicated educators! Today, we’ll walk through a practical lesson on summarizing using Langston Hughes’ classic short story, “Thank You, Ma’am.” Summarizing is an essential skill that helps students distill a text to its core components, promoting comprehension and retention. Why Summarizing Matters Summarizing requires readers to engage deeply with the text, evaluate information, and […]