We are finally able to write made-up stories! We have been waiting all year to share our creativity through writing, and we have hit the ground running! It seems like we are writing book after book! I love having writers workshop time back on the schedule :) It seems like 3 page books are not enough any more! I am thinking about stapling 5 pages together and see what they do with that! |
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Now that our stories are easy for us to read, how can we make our stories more FUN to read! Our next writing unit is tackling just that. We will be using "flaps" to help us add more words to our pages without having to rewrite the whole thing or add a whole other page with another picture. We will be using purple pens on revision day to help us add punctuation, details in our pictures, and more exciting storyteller words. Our writing is going to have to get a little messy with revisions before we finally "publish" our finished piece. We will be wrapping up this unit with a LITERACY CELEBRATION where we invite you to come into class and hear this published piece we have been working so hard on (More information about date and time will be coming later). Things that make our writing more FUN to read!
We wanted to share all the hard work we have been doing, so we made a little video of us reading our writing and sharing our goal for next time! They are up on your student's seesaw account :) The words "writing" and "magical" seem to go hand in hand in my mind. Whenever we settle into our writers workshop time, you can see their wheels turning as they go through the process of thinking about what they want to say, determining which letters they need, and then writing it on the page. You can see their smiles as they share with you an experience they had that they were able to capture on the page. This unit "Writing for Readers" seems like it would be dull, but nevertheless becomes magical. Until now, we have wanted the focus of writing to be feeling good about getting their ideas out on the page and we have hidden the struggles with being able to translate their letters into meaning. We have been distracting children from the fact that we can't read their writing by highlighting their picture and their ability to tell their story with their own storyteller words. The problem with this is that the way students students develop and interest in spelling, conventions, and spaces comes from the fact that these things make is easier for other people to read and understand their text. Alas, the dance begins. We want to empower them as writers who have ideas to share, but we also want them to be shared in a form that is readable to others. The most crucial skills to make their writing more clear are: writing in sentences and re-reading their work as they write. To launch this unit, we looked at writing samples that were easy to read and samples that were hard to read. Then we determined some things that make pieces of writing easy to read. Once you highlight these things for students, they inevitably strive to add them to their writing. We set out to choose one or two of these as goals for our writing. The 2nd piece to this unit is that as writers we also become readers. We are teaching students to re-read their work just like they would a book from their book bag. This allows for that revision process to take place. We even got some cool new pencils to help us practice making our writing easy to read! SO fancy :) These pencils even have POINTER POWER! When we are done with our writing we go back and use the eraser as a pointer to read the words we wrote. Reading our writing is just like reading our books in our book bags. It takes a lot of work! We have to stretch out the sounds and use the pictures for help? Can you read this story?
What problems room 210 kindergarteners see around them
Before we "publish" our first narrative story, we will be using this checklist to see if we have shared our story just like a storyteller would. We will be going into narrative in more depth after this first published piece is complete, but this is a good opportunity for students to reflect on their writing and see how they can make it even better!
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May 2016
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