Circle Stories

During Writing Workshop we are currently working on writing our own circle stories.  Circle stories end where they begin.  We read many examples by Laura Numeroff such as "If You Give a Pig a Pancake."  Using a graphic organizer, the students came up with their own character and plot.  The trickiest part is to make sure that you make the full circle and that your character and events end up where they begin.  The students had so much fun with this writing project and came up with several different stories.  Each student chose his or her favorite one to publish.  The students typed up their own stories and are currently working on making the illustrations for their stories using the mediums of crayon and watercolor.  We will be having an Authors' Celebration mid February to share our finished books with our families.  Not only are the stories very creative, but the illustrations are detailed and beautiful!

Publishing Our Writing

This week we started the publishing process in Writing Workshop.  Each student picked out his or her favorite piece of writing they have written so far.  After the story is chosen, we begin with revising.  I explain to the students that to revise means to make our writing even better.  The concept of revising can be a bit much for first and second graders so I break it down to 4 points:
*Do you have a clear topic?
*Did you add many details?
*Do your details stay on topic?
*Did you take out boring or overused words and replace with better words?

After modeling the above points and showing them many examples they begin to understand the purpose for revising.   Purple pens are handed out, and the students get to work on the 1 piece of writing that they want to make better.

Writing Workshop

Everyday the students are writers in our classroom.  Not only do they have the choice to work on writing during our Daily 5 Block, but we also write during Writing Workshop.  Our Writing Workshop starts out with a mini-lesson where I model writing for the students or introduce a skill for them to work on in their own writing.  The students then have quiet writing time to go back to an old story, begin a new story, or think about a new topic.  During this time I am able to go around and conference with writers about their individual stories.  We conference about a variety of things: what to write about, details to add, how to spell words, and other conventions of writing.  Last week each student received a little dictionary to keep in the writing binder.  The students are finding these the be very useful!  They are constantly flipping through them looking for words to use in their writing!  After the quiet writing time, there is the chance for writers to get together with a partner or small group to share their writing.  We end with Authors' Chair.  During this time individual students have the opportunity to share a story with the class and take questions and comments about it.

A Special Place to Hold our Writing

Today the students had the opportunity to use their pictures and stickers and other items they brought in to decorate their writing binders and make them special and personal to each student.  This is always one of my favorite beginning of the year activities because I want the students to take ownership over their writing.  Making a personal binder helps this happen.  We use our writing binders just about every day and now the students have a special place to keep their special memories that we write about.  Tomorrow  we will begin our first writing lesson.  We begin by brainstorming topics.  What do I know about?  What am I an expert in?  What could I tell somebody?  The second graders are always ready to dive in and tell about something they did over the summer.  The first graders may begin more hesitant, but they soon see that we all have a story to tell, and we are all writers!  It is very fun to watch all of the students grow in their writing over the school year!

On a side note, I was so impressed to see several students share items they brought in today.  The kindness and willingness to share made me feel so happy to have a class filled with such nice students!