Whose Idea is it Anyway? - Weebly

Whose Idea is it Anyway? A writers improv session Anna Wolff [email protected] Leo Hopcroft [email protected] Goals for participants To describe how a writer's improv activity fits into the Reading Apprenticeship

Framework. To experience what it is like to try on the mind of one writer, articulate their ideas, and attempt to analyze the work of another writer. To customize an analytical routine so that it can be applied by their own students to source materials used in their own classes. Discussion Questions

What are your experiences with helping student accurately represent the ideas of multiple authors in a synthesis essay? What strategies do you use with your students to understand an authors point of view? In this exercise, you are a student! Read the excerpts and decide where your allegiance lies: Team Jobs

or Team Tokumitsu. Add points on your triple-entry journal. Round 1 of writers improv: Trying on Jobs Each person assumes the mantle of Jobs in turn. Decide who is going first.

When it is your turn, pick one Tokumitsu point from your TS/TS/IS chart. Read it out loud. Spend 1-2 minutes talking out loud as if you were Jobs responding to the idea from Tokumitsu. Round 2 of writers improv: Trying on Tokumitsu

Each person assumes the mantle of Tokumitsu in turn. Decide who is going first. When it is your turn, pick one Jobs point from your TS/TS/IS chart. Read it out loud. Spend 1-2 minutes talking out loud as if you were Tokumitsu responding to the idea from Jobs.

Round 3 of writers improv: Three writers interrogate each other One person is Jobs. Another person is Tokumitsu. The third person is themselves (the I Say). Decide who is going to begin the conversation: Jobs or Tokumitsu. All three authors participate in a conversation. We will give you a 1 minute warning to make sure the I Say gets the last word.

Afterwards, all three work together to add to and clarify the notes on your tripleentry journals Follow up from writers improv What was the interesting or surprising thing that happened during your writers improv? Team Jobs or Team Tokumitsu? Did you change your mind? Why or why not?

With our students, we immediately move from this conversation to a computer lab where they begin a discovery draft for a synthesis essay using these sources. Reporting out Groups take 5 minutes to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this activity and how you

might use or change this activity for your own class How does this fit into the Reading Apprenticeship Framework? Thank you! Anna Wolff

[email protected] Leo Hopcroft [email protected]