Immersion is helpful for strong writers who need less explicit instruction in order to try out new writing concepts as well as for writers who strive to complete their written work. Sometimes seeing a completed piece is exactly what they need in order to kick their executive functioning into gear.
Category: personal essay
Active Engagement with Pear Deck
Active engagement looks different now than it did pre-COVID-19. One digital tool for active engagement is Pear Deck. Read on to find out how I'm using Pear Deck with my third grade writers!
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Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay: Expand the Possibilities of the Genres You Teach
Are students constrained when they write five-paragraph essays? If we change our working definition of essay writing, then we can teach beyond the five-paragraph essays we often see in schools.
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Paper Choices for Opinion and Argument Writing: Reaching Your Writers
Providing options for paper allows all your students to do the same type of writing (opinion, persuasive, or argument) in many different ways. Differentiating the materials makes it possible for all your students to do the work--without having to resort to a formula or fill-in-the-blank worksheet.
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Think More, Say More, Write More: Elaborating with Personal Essay
How do you help writers bridge the gap from paragraph writing to essay writing? What are your favorite strategies for elaboration?
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Pausing to Reflect: Personal Essays
My third graders are wrapping up their unit on personal essay. While some have grasped the structure and have articulated reasons and examples to support their argument, others have struggled to understand the concept of an essay. I want to take some time to think about what went right when teaching this unit and where the breakdowns occurred.
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Making Structure Visible
Teaching structural elements sometimes takes a visual touch.
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Personal Essay Body Paragraphs
Where are the paragraphs and what are they suppose to look like?
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Stepping Into Personal Essay
GAH! I've never taught an essay unit! Watch me stumble, watch me fall, and watch me pick up all the pieces as they come together!
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Supporting Organization in Persuasive Writing
Color-coding is a quick and simple way to support students with that all-important skill of organization. Persuasive writing is a case in point.
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Basic Comment Sheet
Need a basic comment sheet for your students' next Publishing Celebration? Just make a three-column table in Word like this:
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It’s going to be a busy week!
Week of December 1st, 2008 Originally uploaded by teachergal I just finished planning out the upcoming week and wow... there's a lot going on! However, when I realized my kids were publishing and starting a new unit of study this week, I realized I had to create some additional sheets to get them to reflect… Continue reading It’s going to be a busy week!
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 