Expository

Hi Everyone! I’m sorry this post is a couple of days late – “Mondays with Maryellen” is on Wednesday this week ☺. We just returned from a whirlwind series of workshops in both San Antonio, Texas and Billings, Montana. We had great audiences, fabulous times with colleagues, and of course the San Antonio RiverWalk, the Alamo and the Big Sky Sunsets were marvelous to visit. Sheila’s 20-month-old daughter Casey and our friend Mary accompanied us on this trip — we’ve included some photos!

San Antonio was 95 degrees – wow! Billings was comfortable in the 70s. However, when we returned to Massachusetts, it was to a 19-degree morning! Alas, Fall, the prelude to snow in New England!

The trip to Billings and the return to the 19-degree morning prompt me to relate a new invitation we’ve received: A visit to Alaska upon the invitation of AKSHA—Alaska Speech Language and Hearing Association 2016 Convention next October...

The “Core” of The Core manual contains many hands-on materials for student use. One of my favorites is the Expository “My Research” Cut–and-Fold Booklet. I have used this in many settings and grade levels, including centers and with intervention groups. Instructions are included in the manual.

Sea Turtles by Gail Gibbons is one book that works very well with this activity since it includes all expository text structures. As an added resource, Maryellen recently did a section of a webinar on the topic of sea turtles that you might be interested in viewing. (Click here to view Sea Turtles expository analysis excerpt.)...

Today, we will look at some writing samples using the topic of Koalas and ideas to scaffold the process from using the Character Descriptive Map to paragraphs. As stated previously, any book/resource that you use may be adapted to these activities.

We used several resources including:

• Zoobooks: Koalas & Other Australian Animals
• Koala by Caroline Arnold, Photography by Richard Hewett

We followed the same procedure as in the Armadillo and Cheetah lessons: reading short segments, making a list of facts, and placing each fact in the correct category (physical appearance, habitat, food and eating, young, special characteristics)...

We are often asked which books/materials to use with the SGM^® and ThemeMaker^® maps. Although there are many suggestions given in our manuals, the answer is: any selection that you are using will work! The strength of the SGM/ThemeMaker lies in the fact that it is a flexible approach that adds needed scaffolding to make text, whether narrative or expository, assessable to all students.

A recent post, Exploring Expository Text Using the SGM Descriptive Map (August 12, 2015), focused on transitioning from the Narrative Character Map to the Expository Character Descriptive Map.

It’s an Armadillo! written by Bianca Lavies was the text chosen for that first post. Today, we present an extension of this Descriptive Map activity with the topic of cheetahs, which we have presented whole group in grades 2-4. You may modify to meet your needs...

Several lessons on characters and settings have been presented in past blog entries. Increasingly, children are asked to take informational selections and summarize what they have learned. There is a great need to help students find ways to organize and express expository texts. We have found it helpful to take the time to transition from the use of the Character Map—that the children are already familiar with—to the Descriptive Expository Map. Begin by showing your students the Character Map and the Descriptive Map.