I like that question, did you play with the butterflies, etc. I have been talking to my kids about the fact that writing has meaning, for the author and for the reader, and so this would be a good segue into that idea, as well.
Thanks for posting, Elisa Elisa Waingort Grade 2 Spanish Bilingual Dalhousie Elementary Calgary, Canada The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart. —Helen Keller Visit my blog, A Teacher's Ruminations, and post a message. http://waingortgrade2spanishbilingual.blogspot.com/ I teach 2nd grade, and our school uses Lucy Calkins' Units of Study. During the first couple of units (Launching the Writing Workshop, and Small Moments), kids are taught to write about something they did or something that happened to them. I've asked kids before: "Did you play with the butterflies and rainbows?" or something similar. Of course, they haven't. We use mentor texts to model things that happen to us, like A Chair for My Mother. I have a group of boys this year that write about the computer games they play (non-violent, thankfully). I let them write one, but then they have to come up w/ other things to write about, and then publish. As a class we make a list of things we can write about. Here are some examples: A time when I went somewhere (beach, Walmart, field trip) A time when I did something with someone special (cousins, mom, grandpa) Something I saw, smelled, tasted, touched or heard Something I've done once and would like to do again Something I've done once and never want to do again Something I did that made me happy, sad, embarrassed, angry, excited, surprised etc. We worked on this list during a couple of minilessons. The next step is to "zoom in" on a small moment. For example, say a child writes about his week at Outer Banks beach. We talk about how to zoom in on the putt-putt game, or the water slide, or when the wave knocked him over, etc. Makes for MUCH better writing! We do get into creative writing later, but this is a nice way to start, because you can refer back to it when starting the creative writing. Melissa/VA/2nd
_______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
