My class this year has developed into a group of writers! No more groans when I ask them to take out the Writer's Notebooks or when we work on revising and editing. I'm not sure exactly what made them turn the corner, but here are a few things we have done:
- we had a guest author come in for a week to work with the students
- the students have been writing every day (almost)
- I've given general prompts and allowed the students to, "go where it takes you"
- we've discussed lots of examples, and I have written along with them
- I've used mentor texts in my mini-lessons
- the students are conferencing with each other about word choice and sentence fluency.
I'm excited about where we can go from here!
[Edit: Response]
Hi MrsC!
Thank you for sharing your successes with us. It's always an encouragement to hear from great teachers. I really like the idea of bringing in a guest author and of writing along side your kids!
My class this year has developed into a group of writers! No more groans when I ask them to take out the Writer's Notebooks or when we work on revising and editing. I'm not sure exactly what made them turn the corner, but here are a few things we have done:
- we had a guest author come in for a week to work with the students
- the students have been writing every day (almost)
- I've given general prompts and allowed the students to, "go where it takes you"
- we've discussed lots of examples, and I have written along with them
- I've used mentor texts in my mini-lessons
- the students are conferencing with each other about word choice and sentence fluency.
I'm excited about where we can go from here!
[Edit: Response]
Hi MrsC!
Thank you for sharing your successes with us. It's always an encouragement to hear from great teachers. I really like the idea of bringing in a guest author and of writing along side your kids!
Regards,
Justin