Writing

Writer’s Workshop instruction includes:

· Introduction of a specific 2^nd grade writing skill within the genre we are studying at the carpet in whole-group

· A 5-7 minute whole group mini-lesson. Usually the teacher is showing how an author of a book that we already read aloud does something that smart writers does

· Teacher may also show on the projector examples of where a student in class used the strategy or where she used the strategy in her own writing examples

· Students will demonstrate engagement by helping the teacher by turning to their partner and thinking of where they notice the strategy or how/where to add the skill in the example piece displayed. They could also think about where/how they could try this in their own pieces

· Students go back and work at whatever place in their writing they are currently on for a larger, uninterrupted periods of time as the year progresses

· The teacher leads mini-conferences with individual students. This consists of complimenting students on what they are doing well at, then giving them strategies or tools in a specific area in the writing they need to work on to lift the level of their writing. Teacher may demonstrate for them how to improve using mentor text read alouds, her own writing and student pieces. She checks back with the student to see if he/she is applying the skill

· The teacher leads strategy groups for students who all need work on the same areas

· Students have opportunities to share their work with partners in order to help each other learn and be inspired as well as to have their work used as a share example for the class when they demonstrate something that smart writers do

We get ideas from our own experiences and interests, the pictures on our writing folders, stories that come to us that we record in our Tiny Topic Notebooks, and ideas we get from sharing writing with friends, and inspiration from read published authors. My story about moving will be different than my friend’s experience and different from a published author. We use our own experiences again later in All About/Informational Writing as we write the facts about holidays we celebrate, places we’ve been, sports we play, animals we love, etc. Realistic Fiction also is built upon our own experiences as we create a story about a 2^nd grader who has a similar problem we’ve faced, but solves it differently or we use an idea that happened to our neighbor and pretend that it happened to us. We have the freedom to change characteristics and events. We wonder “What if?” we hadn’t made the soccer team or my dog ran away….what would happen then? and create a realistic plot. We can also use these ideas for Opinion - Why is Christmas the best holiday? What are the Giants the best football team? Why should everyone try White water rafting? We can describe our feelings about these topics and describe them well in our poetry unit. This folder is important to have filled with many different ideas for writing. Tell stories verbally several times helps us to put the parts in order and increase details.

One piece per unit will be tidied up and “published” with a cover and possible dedication, copyright, about the author, colored illustrations, back blurb, etc. (see left) but the goal is to spend as much time writing as possible and create as many quality pieces as possible. A student who practices planning, and writing beginning through the ending on 5 pieces will be more successful than a student who only gets to practice beginnings twice. For that reason we learn to plan out carefully over 5 pages of writing by sketching a quick picture, using post-its to remind us of the main idea on that page and retelling the story across the 5 fingers on our hand to know what we are going to write. A good plan first allows us to focus on the writing during the quiet writing period.

2^nd grade Writing Units Include:

1. Personal Narrative/Small Moment

2. Informational Text/All About Books

3. Poetry

4. Realistic Fiction

5. Opinion (about personal topics and Books and Characters) in letter form

6. Free Choice (possible fairytale, fantasy or fiction)

More information about each unit will come home in newsletters as we work on those topics.

Writing is also integrated throughout the day and the year by recording science observations, writing letters to various people, explaining our thinking on math word problems, narrating the adventures of the class pet, etc. We connect the disciplines whenever possible, such as writing an All About the type of community we create in social studies, advice letters for future second graders.

We practice conventions and mechanics of writing through writing and editing our morning message, our Daily Language practice editing, vocabulary work and word work. We also try to incorporate games and songs that teach about grammar, vocabulary, homophones, and correct punctuation/word usage

Students celebrate each unit by reading their work in small groups for compliments (personal narrative), to another class (opinion), to a younger grade (teaching kindergarteners non-fiction) and many other ways.

REVISING and EDITING

Writers are continuously rereading their work to make it better and clearer. We encourage students to constantly go back to old stories to add/try out some of the new skills that have been more recently taught. We use ARMS to Revise and CUPS to edit. We refer back to our checklist of skills for each particular unit.

We have a separate day focusing on revising mid-way through the unit and at the end as we are publishing. We use purple pen to show that we have added, changed or moved words to make improvements. We use red pens when we are editing for capitals for proper nouns or at the beginning of sentences, and punctuation at the end. We learn about apostrophes for belonging and contractions, quotation marks and eventually commas. We are responsible not for spelling everything correctly, only words we have studied.

We add length to pages by adding flaps of paper at the end or adding post-its when we decide to put sentences in the middle of a page. We don't erase so that we can show how writers grow and change. It might look messy, but we want students to learn that improving their work is a messy job. All authors do this, but we only see the beautiful finished books in the bookstore. We want to celebrate not just the finished project, but the process of working, learning and improving.