Understanding Blackacre

Writing at Blackacre

The Nature Preserve offers the perfect setting to stimulate all types of writing. Many classes have spent hours on the Preserve observing the world around them and then writing about it. Blackacre can provide clipboards and Student Journals developed to encourage writing at Blackacre. A field study at Blackacre can be used as the information-gathering step of the writing process or as a self-contained lesson resulting in a finished piece.

The literacy components in writing (paired with reading in the literacy overview of this section) can be applied as strategies to the approach of writing at Blackacre.

Write Aloud
As the final part of a lesson at Blackacre, the vocabulary and concepts taught are used by the teacher to model writing. Teachers share their thinking as they craft a piece on chart paper, reflecting work done by the group. This is an opportunity to summarize the lesson, using the finished Write Aloud as a Read-Aloud piece. Students may be asked to identify key words and explain how the piece connects with the work they did, making it authentic.

Shared Writing
An effective use of this strategy is creating charts describing, summarizing, or reflecting upon work done at Blackacre. Students can combine individual entries from their journals to create a shared piece that incorporates key words and concepts in a selected genre. A related form of shared writing is brainstorming lists of topics (relating to the field study) in a variety of genres to be used in the classroom as a springboard for further writing.

Independent Writing
Experiential learning is an authentic and effective approach for connecting oral language to the written word. Using the JCPS document From Scribbles to Proficiency as a guide; students may be asked to respond to their field-study work through a journal. It is important for young students to have the opportunity to explain their writing, as it may be scribbles or pictures.

As you work through the day at Blackacre, keep charts with important words and concepts to be used as Word Banks for independent writing. As you conduct writing workshops in your class, students may choose to use their Blackacre experience and resulting Word Banks for topics.

The Writer’s Notebook
Most professional writers use a writer’s notebook as a source of ideas and inspiration for the writing they intend to publish. Some writers refer to the notebook as a day book, a log, or a journal, but no matter what it is called, the notebook serves as a place for writers to record what they see and think about.

If your students have not begun a writer’s notebook, you might consider having them start one before your trip to Blackacre. In the notebook, students might include the following:
• Observations of people and places
• Things they wonder about or question
• Ideas for stories
• Interesting things that people have said
• Dreams and memories
• Wishes and secrets
• New, interesting, intriguing words
• Images that stick in their minds
• Notes about things they want to write about
• Other jottings that may stimulate writing later

Students have a great deal to write about during their visit to Blackacre. As they participate in the activities described in this handbook and other activities, they use their notebooks to record their findings, to list the steps, to describe observations, and to answer questions.

Students also can use their writer’s notebook to record what they see in the natural setting around them. The more exact and specific they are in their observations, the better the writing will be that grows from the notebook entries.

When the students return to school after their time at Blackacre, the notebooks will hold the ideas and information that will allow the students to create a piece of writing suitable for publishing and for the writing portfolio.

Writing for the Portfolio
If you have worked with the writing portfolio, you are aware of the criteria on which the writing is assessed. Here is an overview:

Audience and Purpose
The piece of writing must be written with an audience in mind. The writer anticipates the needs and expectations of that reader and attends to them in the writing. The writer understands that he/she is writing for a purpose, for example, to persuade, to inform, to entertain. The writing is always focused on achieving that purpose for the intended reader.
Idea Development and Support
The piece of writing has one or more main ideas that are supported by thoughtful details. The purpose of the writing is achieved for the reader by providing facts, examples, descriptions, anecdotes, and/or other means of support.
Organization
The ideas and details flow smoothly from one to another. The reader is never lost or confused as
he/she reads the piece of writing.
Sentences
Sentences in the writing are correct and complete. Sentence structure and length are varied.
Language
Language use is correct. Students use effective word choice to enrich their writing.
Correctness
The writing shows the writer’s control over spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

Core Content for Writing Assessment Primary through Grade Four with assessment at Grade Four
Reflective Writing WR-E-1.1
Reflective Writing includes the writer’s examination of his/her writing skills, abilities, approaches, and products. The reflective form in the portfolio is the Letter to the Reviewer, which contains discussion of the student’s personal growth as a writer and reflection on pieces in the portfolio. Characteristics of Reflective Writing may include discussion of the following:

Goals as a writer
Growth as a writer through the years
Influences (who and/or what) on the writer’s progress and growth
Strategies used during the development of pieces
Selection of portfolio pieces
Application of writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing)

Personal Writing WR-E-1.2
Personal Writing focuses on the life experiences of the writer. Personal forms in the portfolio may include a personal narrative (focusing on the significance of a single event) or memoir (focusing on the significance of a relationship of the writer with a particular person, place, animal or thing). Characteristics of Personal Writing may include

Development of ideas based on personal experience
Sensory details
Writer’s thoughts and feelings
First-person point-of-view
Dialogue where appropriate

Literary Writing WR-E-1.3
Literary Writing artfully communicates with the reader about the human condition. Literary forms in the portfolio include poems, short stories, and scripts. Characteristics of Literary Writing may include the following:

Literary elements of the selected form (e.g., short story—character, poem—rhythm, script—stage directions)
Descriptive language
Literary devices (e.g., personification, end rhyme, similes, metaphors)
Effective ordering of events, impressions, and descriptions
Creation of an effect (e.g., comedy, suspense, horror)
Focus on engaging an audience

Transactive Writing WR-E-1.4
Transactive Writing is informative/persuasive writing that presents ideas and information for authentic audiences to accomplish realistic purposes like those students will encounter in their lives. In Transactive Writing, students write in a variety of forms such as the following: letters, speeches, editorials, articles in magazines, academic journals, newspapers, proposals, brochures, and other kinds of practical workplace writing. Characteristics of Transactive Writing may include the following:

Text and language features typical of the selected form
Information to engage the reader and to clarify and justify purposes
Idea(s) to communicate the specific purpose for an intended audience
Explanation and support to help the reader understand the author’s purpose
Well-organized idea development and support
Effective conclusions

Writing that is included in the portfolio is publishable writing. It is written in a form found in the real world of print to someone who will want or need to read it. Blackacre offers a variety of activities that can provide your students with ideas for writing for their portfolios. Their writer’s notebooks should contain the details necessary to create pieces such as the following:

FREEDOM by a Seventh-Grade Student
Example of Short Fiction

Running, faster and faster. My side ached with every breath I took from the icy, fall air. I didn’t care about the pain, I had blocked most of it out. Promising myself that I was going to make it across the pond. The pond, the thing that separated me from the one thing I dreamed about since I had been thrown on that awful ship. Freedom, where I could walk without shackles and nobody could say I was their property. No, I am not a slave. I’m talking about one of the activities at Blackacre Nature Preserve. Where my school team went on a field trip to.

Learning about something like slavery makes you feel so powerless. I never realized all of the injustice done to slaves. Never getting a break from awful work and if you did slack off your punishment would be far worse than your crime. Being sold on a slavery block would have been one of the worst things. Having a price put on you, then after your master pays it you are theirs, forever. Kind of like selling your soul to the devil. In my group at Blackacre we had a few people who looked at the map of the course we needed to follow and who thought they knew where they were going. The rest of the group (including me) didn’t get to see the map and we were just following the leaders blindly.

After running up a steep, muddy trail and crossing the old toll road, half the leaders said go this way, the other half said that way. We all followed the more popular leaders. Climbing over a leaning, rusty fence is a very hard thing. By that time we had entered a cow pasture that had way to many cow piles for my liking.

We were screaming and yelling at each other just to be yelling at each other because we were cold, wet and muddy. After thinking we were totally lost we found the dead tree, one of the signs on the map. That made us hope we would find our way.

Then we saw the barb-wire fence another sign on the map. Some of the others made their way delicately over, then they realized they weren’t supposed to be over there. So they came back. Walking along the fence, we then saw the very shallow, four feet wide creek, another clue.

Now that’s pretty harmless until you see one ledge is four feet higher than the other. That wouldn’t be so bad except you were jumping into total mud. Well, I’m not the most balanced person in the world. So when I jumped, I came tumbling into the mud.

I couldn’t sit there and pout because we could see our “master” coming. We had lost so much time getting partially lost and screaming and shouting our way through the entire thing, that he was right on our trail. We were caught! There was no way around it. My group had no teamwork. We were only helping ourselves, not caring about others. I think that if we were able to get the boat into the water some of us would have ended up going overboard.

If we were actually slaves our “master” would have whipped us until we were a bloody mess then whipped us some more. Or we were traded to another plantation, never to see our family again. All that for freedom. A seven letter word that was the world to them. One word we take for granted everyday. A race that kills another race because they think they are superior is hardly ready to accept the responsibilities of another human’s life. It would be nice, for once, if we could be humane instead of just being human.

Short Fiction
Teaching Tip:
Details in fiction should reflect the writer’s knowledge of the setting and characters.

Historical fiction set in Blackacre in the past
Some Notebook Activities:

Role-play an historical figure in a particular situation, for example, an enslaved person trying to join the Underground Railroad. Write notes about what you did and how you felt.
Use all your senses to make specific notes describing the part of Blackacre that you will use for the setting of your story.
Collect notes on how people lived at Blackacre during the time period in which you will set your story.

Native-American, African-American, or European-American folk tales
Some Notebook Activities:

Collect information about how Native Americans, African Americans, or European Americans lived at Blackacre.
Listen to some folk tales from these cultures. Write down some similar characteristics from the folk tales.
Use all your senses to make specific notes describing the part of Blackacre that you will use for the setting of your folk tale.

A fable using some of Blackacre’s animals as characters
Some Notebook Activities:

Study your animal’s appearance, habitat, and habits. Use this information in your fable.
Role-play some of your animal’s activities. Write down what the animal did and how you think it felt about it.

A myth based on a natural occurrence observed at Blackacre
Some Notebook Activities:

Collect scientific information explaining the natural occurrence you will use for your myth.
Collect detailed notes describing the natural occurrence—look, listen, touch, and smell.

A short story set in Blackacre in present time
Some Notebook Activities:

Use all your senses to make specific notes describing the part of Blackacre that you will use for the setting of your story.
Role-play the main character in your story’s most critical situation. Write down what you did and how you felt about it.

Poetry
Teaching Tip:
Poetry uses an economy of words to evoke images and to express emotion. Rhythm is a hallmark of poetry, as is rich language. Lucy Calkins says, “Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”

Nature poetry evoking one of the many natural images seen at Blackacre

MY TREE by a Sixth-Grade Student

I heard yesterday that the Indians believe
that for every crooked tree there is one
crooked person.
I hope my tree isn’t crooked, I hope it’s straight and strong.
Where the birds sit and sing their song.
My tree would be able to touch the stars in the sky.
It would be hundreds of years old, but would never die.
In its straight, defined grains it would keep secrets of long ago,
If I sat by my tree,
It would talk with me.
It would tell me things from its long life,
and give me very wise advice.
Someday I’ll find the tree that I can call my own.
It will be strong, straight, and fully grown.
But, if you happen to find my tree,
before me,
please don’t cut down my tree,
you would be cutting down a part of me.

Some Notebook Activities:

Use all your senses to make specific notes describing the image you will use in your poem.
Make a list of all the words you can use to describe the image.

Narrative poetry telling the story of one or more of Blackacre’s past inhabitants
Some Notebook Activities:

Role-play an historical figure in a particular situation, for example, a Native American seeing white people at Blackacre for the first time. Write notes about what you did and how you felt.
Use all your senses to make specific notes describing the part of Blackacre that you will use for the setting for your poem.
Collect notes on how people lived at Blackacre during the time period in which you will set your poem.

Writing to Analyze and/or Inform
Write a newspaper or magazine article describing the process of doing one of the following:

Developing a wildflower garden
Making cornhusk crafts
Using natural dyes with fabric
Candlemaking
Weaving

Notebook Activity:
Follow the activity as it is outlined in this handbook. Make notes about all steps and procedures as you do them.
Teaching Tip:
Students should be careful to avoid writing a simple list of “bare-bones” directions. Students need to remember that they are writing the article for people who do not know how to do the task, so they need clear, elaborate directions. Students also must remember that their readers need to understand why doing this task is fun, interesting, or otherwise beneficial to them.

An interpretive guide for one of the ecological communities in the Preserve, such as fields, streams, fence rows, etc. (This might be written for other students who will visit Blackacre.)

Notebook Activity:
Select one or more of the activities in this handbook that relate to the ecological community you have selected. Make notes about all steps and procedures of the activity as you do them.
Teaching Tip:
Remind students that an interpretive guide does not tell the reader what he/she can see easily. It gives information that the reader needs to know in order to have a greater appreciation of the subject.

Writing to Persuade
Teaching Tip:
Students need to include plenty of facts in order to convince the reader to accept their point of view.

An editorial focused on continuing or increasing funding for Blackacre as a natural preserve
Some Notebook Activities:

Make a list of everything you learned at Blackacre during your visit. Beside each item, list why it is important for you to know this.
Collect information about who funds Blackacre and how much it takes to operate it as a nature preserve.

An article for other teachers in the school explaining the benefits of taking a class trip to Blackacre
Notebook Activity:
Make a list of everything you learned at Blackacre during your visit. Beside each item, list why it is important for you to know this.

A letter to one of Blackacre’s industrial neighbors explaining how they are contributing to environmental problems at Blackacre and suggesting what they can do to improve the present situation
Some Notebook Activities:

Follow the procedures outlined in this handbook for one or more of the activities related to the environmental problem your letter will discuss (e.g., Stream Study, Pond Study, Stream Flow). Make notes about all steps and procedures as you do them.
Compare the results of your activity with results collected from other students over the years.
Make notes about the industrial neighbor’s activities that are causing the problem.
Write down your solution to the problem.

A letter to the school principal or School-Based Decision Making Council convincing them to allow the creation of a natural habitat on the school property
Some Notebook Activities:

Collect notes on habitats as you complete activities at the Nature Preserve.
Read Appendix 7—“Outdoor Labs.” Make notes about how to create a habitat.
Collect information about where your habitat will be located on the school property, how students will create it, what (if anything) it will cost, and how it will be educationally beneficial.

Personal Narrative
Teaching Tip:
In relating a specific incident or experience, show an understanding of the event through description and awareness of surroundings.

Some Notebook Activities:

Select one incident that occurred while you were on your field study at Blackacre. As your write, relate the experience from your point of view.
During a noninstructional period at your field study, become aware of your surroundings, using all your senses. In your personal narrative, record these observations and tell how you fit them into the setting.

A DAY AT BLACKACRE by a Fifth-Grade Student
Example of a Personal Narrative

It was a chilly Friday morning. First I went to the 200-year-old barn. The barn swallows were flying about frantically. The horse whinnied when she saw me. I went to the pig sty to get some corn for her. The air was musty and the walls were covered with cob webs. I thought of the people who lived here as I fingered the ancient tools on the wall. I slowly lifted the latch of a dusty door and found myself inside the hayloft. The horse put her head through the window that looked into her stall. I gave her the corn. Then I sat in the hay and read, but I didn’t stay long. A goat chased me out, and I don’t like to mess with goats. The grass was sparkling with dew.

It was starting to get hotter, so I decided to go wading in the creek. I walked down the gravel road to the trail. The trail seemed incredibly long that day, and there seemed to be more spider webs across the path than usual. When I got to the waterfall, I climbed down the grapevine rope and started exploring. The creek is very small, but in some places there are pools a couple of feet deep. The water falls from overhanging rocks. It’s very cool and damp with lots of ferns. This is my favorite place at Blackacre because it is so peaceful and since it is in the woods, there are lots of birds and other animals to watch. I took off my shoes and got into one of the deep pools, then started walking downstream. When I would step over a log, I never knew what to expect... three inches of water or three feet of water. Sometimes I stepped on sharp rocks that hurt my feet, and when I stepped in algae it felt soothing. It was getting late in the day. I quickly put on my shoes and hurried back through the woods.

These are just a few of the many possibilities for writing portfolio entries that can begin with a trip to Blackacre. As you read through the tasks included in this handbook, you will probably think of more. Please let us know about Blackacre-related writing activities that are successful with your students. We will start a collection of these activities and will display some of the most effective student writing at the Nature Preserve.