I'm planning on having my students complete an "on-demand" personal essay for the next two days before we begin our unit of study on persuasive letter writing. These are the guidelines I put together for them, which is modified from the original document I put together with two of my former colleagues, Christina and Artemis,… Continue reading On-Demand Writing
Category: personal essay
Publishing before a vacation
I was talking with one of my former student teachers tonight. We were discussing the fact that it's hard to get kids to publish before a big school vacation (like the one we have coming up next week). We're both trying to cruise through the end of the personal essay unit of study, but it's… Continue reading Publishing before a vacation
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Body Paragraphs
My students will start drafting their personal essay body paragraphs tomorrow. In preparation for this event, I put together the basics of a good body paragraph. They are, as follows: EVERY GOOD BODY PARAGRAPH SHOULD INCLUDE: 1. Topic Sentence: The topic sentence is your hook, it should have a bit of attitude in it. There's… Continue reading Body Paragraphs
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I’m noticing…
I'm noticing that the quality of my students' writing is getting better. I think it's because of the personal essay unit of study (Calkins and Gilette) that I'm using in my classroom for the second year in a row. The "Pushing Your Thinking" Prompts have now been infused into their daily speech patterns, as well… Continue reading I’m noticing…
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Personal Essay Rubric
Using the rubric I created for the personal narrative unit of study as a skeleton, I created a personal essay rubric a few days ago. I tweaked it with Kate yesterday afternoon and this is what I came up with for my kids. Again, there's a row so that each student can self-assess their writing… Continue reading Personal Essay Rubric
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Creating Folders for “Patches of Thought”
During my first year of teaching I attended a Calendar Day hosted by the TCRWP where I got the idea for creating portable folders for my students to use in Writing Workshop to assist them with collecting "patches of thought" for each of their subordinate ideas during the personal essay unit of study. Though Lucy… Continue reading Creating Folders for “Patches of Thought”
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Take Note of What Surrounds You
My students have been doing a lot of noticing in Writing Workshop since we began our Personal Essay Unit of Study last week. Hence, I created this Motivational Poster (of sorts) online. I hope it inspires you to notice what surrounds you this week and to write about it. Here's a potential charge for :… Continue reading Take Note of What Surrounds You
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Stacey’s WN Entry: Making Lists and Growing Thinking
I just recorded an entry in my writer's notebook about some amusing things I've observed in my classroom in the past week. Then, I grew some thinking about each of the three ideas. I noticed that Ruth scanned-in her entries from her notebook last week. Hence, I'm copying her and doing the exact same thing.
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WN Entry: Words of Wisdom (W.O.W.)
Ruth and I collect quotations, which is why we have an entire page devoted to quotes. However, I also like Words of Wisdom. In fact, I have had my two previous classes create "Words of Wisdom" Signs for use in my next classroom. (This is a space where each child has the opportunity to give… Continue reading WN Entry: Words of Wisdom (W.O.W.)
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One notebook or many?
Last week I blogged about a Recipe for Conferring Success. I've done some more thinking about it in recent days and am left pondering the following questions for myself as a teacher of writing: 1. One notebook or many? a. How many notebooks should teachers of writing keep to use in conferences and strategy lessons… Continue reading One notebook or many?
