This past week we finished another bend and published our second small moment. In this last mini unit, students focused on making these small moments come to life. Students learned that when they make their characters both move and talk in their pictures and writing, the stories begin to get more exciting. Partnerships during the last few weeks helped students be thorough in describing their moment as they asked one another questions using the words, who, what, where, when, and why. Students even read their stories, acting out and making a video in their heads to determine if they included every step. Many students even tried out using quotations in their own writing and all students enjoyed finding talking marks in their own books they read. More than a week was spent studying other authors, where children looked closely at their writing trying to determine what makes these stories so good! Students discovered and experimented with putting bold words in their text, adding ellipses, and telling their story step by step. As one student shared with others last week, "I think this small moment can be published at Bear Pond Books!" That's how GOOD these stories are! Students spent this past week revising and EDITING their small moments. Students are being detectives in their own work to determine whether their writing makes sense, includes appropriate capital letters, and has punctuation in the write places. I was thoroughly impressed with the ability of this group of kids to spend an entire week on revising and editing. They were determined to make their stories even better, adding more details and elaborating every day on this one piece. INQUIRE with your child what their small moment was about that they "published." (All writing that came home last week did not go through the revision stage - just one, that you'll get to read at conferences!)
Throughout the year the writing focus will shift. We will now be moving into non-fiction writing, and later in the year, we will be learning to write persuasive opinion pieces.
