Show not Tell writing

Today I tried spending more time unpacking an exemplar for writing and making students aware of the senses used from Sheena Cameron.  This worked much better then my previous lesson where we identified the who, what, where, how elements.  I had deliberately planned out my questions for unpacking the exemplar so I could guide students to notice certain features.  An example of my planning and the exemplar are below:    

 

 This is the exemplar used for today's lesson.

 Our deconstruction of the exemplar text.  All students had their own copy and their deconstruction is in their book.  Students were able to notice the different features and key ideas and link them to the Sheena Cameron senses.

 

The students were able to come up with this visual success criteria after deconstructing the exemplar text.

What I found was that students need time to deconstruct and write over the exemplar.  They need to actively deconstruct their own example text so they can identify and see the features the writer has used.  Once they have done this, they are able to quickly state what features they need for their own memoir writing.

Students were given 5 minutes to plan their writing which doesn't take too long as they have already visualised and retold their ideas during the visualisation part of the lesson.  After planning, students were given 12 minutes to write their memoir.  This is where my lesson came unstuck a little as students struggled to write.  They said it was because they were trying to focus on showing not telling their race story.

What went well:

Deconstructing the exemplar and colour coding key features

Students ability to come up with a success criteria

Using the Sheena Cameron sense prompts for students to connect the ideas in the exemplars to the writer using their senses - connecting this to the who, what, where, when, how, why

Planning after visualising

Students sharing their story idea with a buddy

What didn't work well and next steps:

Students getting stuck on writing their ideas as they were too focused on how to show not tell.  Next step is to get students to get all their story ideas written down then we will explicit go back and revise and edit it to change any sentences that are telling to showing sentences.