I call this video, what is a mini-lesson? But I think we probably all could define what a mini-lesson is. A better title might be what makes a mini-lesson effective. Because a good mini-lesson is more than just a short lesson, although many lessons are short, usually 5-15 minutes at most and they usually have one main objective. But theorist and educator Nancie Atwell, who has written a lot about effective mini-lessons emphasizes that a mini-lesson isn't just 5 or 10 minutes of the teacher standing in front of the class lecturing about some topic. What are the characteristics that make a mini-lesson effective? First, it's interactive. The teacher may set the tone, start things off but ultimately the students should participate, offering ideas, asking questions, doing things. One of the most common and effective approaches to making a mini-lesson interactive is the I do, we do, you do design. I'll bring up a topic model how you might do it? Then we'll all do it together as a group. Finally you'll try it for yourself individually. That's the I do, we do, you do? If you think back to when we talked about writing territories, in the previous module I started out by introducing the term, talking about what it meant, what it could involve. Then I began to model how one might come up with writing territories, by talking about some of my own. My attempt to establish an identity separate from my sister for instance or the ocean, a mile or two away from my house across which I could see China. Then we talked about different types of writing territories and how anyone could move from a writing topic to a writing territory. If we'd been together in a face-to-face class, we could have tried out some writing territories together, as a class, for instance, talking to you about some of our territories related to where we grew up. Finally, I asked you to make a list of some of your own writing territories. This is the most important aspect of the mini-lesson, that's be interactive. It starts with you introducing the topic and then modeling. Model your enthusiasm, your passion at the same time admits that you struggle sometimes, we all make mistakes. Your goal is to make what seems invisible, visible. I think I've mentioned before that one of my favorite quotes from Toni Morrison, is about how she worked very hard to make it seem as if the writing came very easily to her. If you think about any of the books we read in school, that we ask students to read the writers have worked very hard to make invisible the machinery that produced that book. All the rough drafts, mistakes corrected, false starts, revisions, we don't see any of them. All the frustrations and hard work and doubts, all the struggle, all that struggle is invisible to the person who picks up the crisp new book with the shiny cover. It seems almost the book has a baby that suddenly came out of its author hall without hardly any labor. When we model we demystify this process. This is what I do, to start. Then the whole class becomes involved. We need to talk aloud and explain what is going on in our minds as we write. We need to ask questions and let our minds become active around the subject. Students get to try things out within the safety and support of the whole group. We all learn from each other. This is the part that's we do. Then we ask students to try it on their own. This is the I do. Many lessons also should not be created too far in advance but should arise out of specific needs. I once created a mini-lesson and a fiction writing class on the past perfect tense because I noticed many students didn't seem to understand how to use it, and infection and particularly narrative fiction, the past perfect tenses is critical. Mini-lessons also should grow out of the student's writing, out of the challenges they are facing. We'll talks about going through a batch of recent student papers and looking for potential mini-lessons. If several students seem to be facing the same challenge in their writing that's the perfect topic for a mini-lesson. The students who are not struggling with that challenge we'll be able to help those who are. It can be inviting to think, I'm going to maybe in the summer, I'm going to create a whole batch of mini-lessons that I can draw out to my students throughout the year. But the issue here is that the mini-lesson is most effective when it comes up immediately following something that is going on in the student's own writing or within the class itself. Once you've created a mini-lesson that covers a particular topic and is effective, you can put it in a file and maybe use it again next year when that moment arises for your class. But the key is to let those mini-lessons grow out of the student's need. What need is being shown to you by the students through their writing? To recap for mini-lessons helps students see why the topic is important to them as writers. Where's it coming from, this idea? It's coming from your writing. I'd been looking at your writing. If it grows out of writing they're doing or relates to something important either that they are doing now or that they might be doing in the future, let students feel that immediacy and relevance of what this lesson is about. Model. Show them how you do it. Demonstrate how it can be done. Give examples are taken through a guided practice. Show them your thinking, show them your process. Actively engage with students. But then practice what you've shown them, what's being taught. Let them help each other, and generate ideas and questions as a group. Let them try it on their own if possible in their own writing. In the next videos, we'll look at examples of a couple of mini-lessons that aim to meet these characteristics.
