Wonderful Writer: Ezra Jack Keats

  The Snowy Day

Ezra Jack Keats

Word Choice: Adding Description and Detail  

Lesson Focus: Using descriptive words and language in writing.

Focus Grade Level: First Grade

Time Frame:  Several Days

Focus Text/Author: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Other Materials:

·         Paper

·         Crayons

·         Writing paper

·         Highlighters

Ohio Academic Content Standards Lesson Focus:

Standard: Writing Process

K-2 Benchmark:

D. Use revision strategies and resources to improve ideas and content, organization, word choice and detail.

1^st Grade Level Indicators:

7. Mimic language from literature when appropriate.

10. Add descriptive words and details

Book Summary:

In the story, The Snowy Day, Peter plays and explores on a snowy day. The story conveys the message of the magic when it snows for young children. Peter brings home a snowball and puts it in his pocket that disappears at the end of the story. The story uses language that describes a snowy setting very vividly to its readers. 

About the Author:

 Ezra Jack Keats was born on March 11, 1916. He was always a good student and outstanding artist. The characters in his over 85 books he wrote were people from his environment around him. He used his personal and family life within his books to create experiences  where children could make connections. The Snowy Day was awarded the Caldecott Award in 1963. For more information about Ezra Jack Keats visit    http://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=62.

Before the Lesson:

Make sure this is a familiar story to the students. This should not be a first read with this book. The students should have already enjoyed the book. Students are now going to use the book for their own learning within their writing.

Things to Remember:

First grade writers often need a foundation to draw from in order to extend their own writing. This will be an anchor lesson for using describing words and details. The students need to understand HOW Ezra Jack Keats used describing words and details to convey his story in a more effective manner.  This book should be an example or model for using these types of words in their writing. The main goal is for students to understand HOW he used the words and HOW they can use the same description in their writing by learning from Ezra Jack Keats. You want your students to start to understand that word choice can have an impact on a story and writing.

Lesson Steps:

First Day

1.   First, read the first two pages of The Snowy Day to the class (Do NOT show the illustrations to the students). Please remember this is not a discussion about the story elements.

2.   Have students draw a picture of what they saw after they heard that part of the story.

3.   Have the students share their information with a partner and explain why they put certain details in their pictures. (Make sure you are monitoring the student discussions to encourage or redirect any misconceptions.)

4.   Discuss as a class why it was easy to draw a picture based on what Ezra wrote in his story.

5.   Finish reading the story. Discuss different kinds of words Ezra used in his story to paint that picture for us. As students tell the words, try to categorize the words by sound words, color words, feeling words, etc.

6.   Create a chart titled “How Authors Paint the Picture with Words” and write down different kinds of words authors can use to paint a picture with words. These need to be created by the students after having the discussion of different kinds of words. Make sure feeling, sound, color, number, and size words are on the list. As you write the type of word, make sure you put a few examples beside it. For example, you might write color words. Then add some words that you could actually write in your story (brown, yellow, green).  This anchor chart should be added to as you read different stories throughout the year. 

7.   The students need to start with a prewriting experience. Choose an experience all students have been exposed to or experienced (cooking with mom, playing outside, eating dinner, etc.).  The students need to come up with five describing words, based on the anchor chart that describes that experience. Do not limit the students to just visual words such as color and size. Encourage students to think about sounds, feelings, taste, etc. Continue to discuss and comment about “How we will be like Ezra?” and “What can we add about our story like Ezra did?” The anchor chart and the author should be continually referenced throughout the activities.

Day two or more

1.   Have the students use the words from the prewriting activity and write their story.  Depending on the independence of your students, this can be done as a shared writing experience or individually.  If this is a shared writing experience, you will need to do a shared prewriting of different describing words for one experience as a whole class before writing. Throughout the writing, continue to encourage students to understand “How did Ezra use describing words?” and “How could you use some describing words like he did?”

2.   Have students read the story and identify different describing and details that were used in their independent story or class shared writing. Students can highlight or circle these words with a crayon or highlighter.

3.   If no words were relevant in the writing (if done independently, this is a definite possibility for some) then revise to include describing words for different objects or events in their writing.

4.   Reread their writing and share their stories.

5.   Have students make connections to their stories and how they used the anchor chart or The Snowy Day to paint a picture with their words.

6.   Post a good example of using describing words and details.

7.   Continue to use this information and “painting stories with words” over and over again. Young students need repetition to understand the craft of word choice and need many experiences to apply it.

Introduction and Creation

My name is Charlotte. I am currently working on my Reading Endorsement at Wright State University. As a part of our own learning and teaching, we are expected to create a blog to use with our students. I teach first grade in the Dayton area and I am planning on using the information from this blog with my students.  It will cover multiple authors that can be used to help your students in their own writing. Some of the topics for lessons will be ideas, word choice, voice, organization and sentence fluency. I hope that you may find this information useful for your students as well!

How do mentor texts help students in their writing?

Before I start posting lesson ideas, I wanted to give some background information on how powerful and dynamic mentor texts can be on young students and their writing. I have included two videos of teacher trainers explaining to groups of teachers the importance and significance of mentor texts. My first grade students love to think that they are going to be an author. Now, they can be an author just like...(fill in any author's name). It helps them make connections to skills that are actually used by authors. First graders love to be like adults and using these connections to some of their favorite authors can really influence how they write.

The first video describes how you could use a short passage from a text to influence "saying more" or adding details to writing. The literacy consultant does a fabulous job explaining how to use the story My Steps in Writers Workshop.

The next video describes multiple texts that you could use and how these authors can teach students about different writing crafts, skills, or concepts. The chosen mentor books are focused for 2nd and 3rd grade, but you can adjust them to your needs at your grade level.

The whole goal of using mentor texts is to get the students to look at the author as a teacher and model for their writing. You want your students to apply the skills and techniques the chosen authors use and apply them into their own writing. It is not to explain how they use them for reading. The focus should be how can they be just like that writer in their own writing.