Wonderful Writers

Introducing the exciting, new Writers Workshop poster! Ta-Da! The kids are loving this tool to keep track of where they are in the writing process. Each student has a name on a square with a piece of velcro on the back and they move their name down the paper as they progress through their writing piece. We have been talking a lot about taking our time while writing to make sure that the story makes sense and is full of detail. When a story has these two things it will be interesting for the reader, whether that be a teacher, someone at home, or a peer here at school. They are always on the look out for these qualities as they are writing their stories.

The kiddos will be able to tell you about the different steps in the process, but to initiate conversation or jog their memories, here is a brief breakdown.

Writing: Working on their writing! They could be working on new piece or going back to an old piece that they feel needs some additional attention.

Conference #1: When they move their names to this section, this means that they have already looked over their own piece for things such as punctuation, capitals, and their best spelling. When they meet with an adult to conference, we look more closely at spelling, (especially the rules of spelling that we have learned or are learning in Fundations) the flow of their story, and where they could add more detail or "spice" up their words. Since I am meeting with one student at a time, while they are waiting to conference with me or another adult in the room, they are working on another piece they have in their writing folders.

Fix Writing: They go back to their writing spots to fix the things that they just went over with an adult.

Conference #2: They come back up to work with me or another adult to make sure they corrected all that they needed to. This is especially important when they are publishing a piece or it is going to be hung on the wall. As we get farther along in the year, this will be a time for them to conference with a peer.

Read to a Friend: Celebrate that you have completed a detailed, well illustrated, and interesting writing piece by reading it to someone in the class or even another class!

Today was the first day that we used this tool and again, it was a huge hit. The students were chatting as they were getting ready to go home about how much they loved writing and how excited they were to do it again tomorrow!