Writing

My plan for my students writing folders are for them to write a bunch of beginnings to stories/letters/speeches one week (like up to 3 things) and then the following week to pick their favourite and finish the rough draft and go through the editing process... 

Why?

Because not every student is into every last thing that we make them write about.

So here are the 3 pieces of writing that we started this week:

1.  We watched Kid President's Pep Talk video and they each started our own pep talk kind of speech

2.  I read them "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" and had them each draw a person with a problem and then write out some details about that problem (for their prewriting/brainstorming).  Then they took those details and started turning them into a story

I had my students guess my characters problem.  At first they said his problem was that he was angry.. then someone noticed his pants were too short.  We talked about the details together and then they did their own.  I started my story while they were writing theirs... but alas, it's at school.

3.  For the last one, I asked them if they thought a story could be written on a chair... I got mixed answers.  So we came up with a list of everything that we thought a writer would need to include about a chair if he were to write about one.  Then I read them "The Hickory Chair" and we checked off which ones the author mentioned (and what ones were implied through the writing).  Then, to start their own writing I had them come up something they had that was a symbol of friendship, special in some way, or reminded them of a trip.  They came up with their list of questions they would have to answer about that object in their writing and then got to writing.

We've been working on getting good ideas and details into our writing this week (we will likely continue this theme in a couple of weeks when I go back to giving them more ideas to write about).