Writing Workshop

Our First Publishing Party!                   March 31, 2023 

Last Minute Edits & Revision

Unit 3: Storytelling

Enduring Understandings 

• Telling a story comes before drawing and writing a story 

• All stories, whether told, drawn, or written have a beginning, middle and end

• People communicate through stories 

Essential Questions

•  How do storytellers use experiences to generate story ideas? 

• How do storytellers rehearse their stories to make them more meaningful for an audience?

We Are Storytellers !

We share our story idea, friends ask us questions : Who, Where, What, +How (feelings)

We add these details to our writing,

VIDEO

We Are Writers !

We publish and share our stories.

VIDEO 

Unit 2: Show & Tell

Essential Questions

•  How can I write lots of books about the things that I study? 

Bend I: Writing is a Way to Show and Tell

• How can I observe and study an object that’s important to draw and label that object part by part, writing lots of labels onto that drawing and then revising the picture and the labels by adding more onto them?

Bend II: Writing Show and Tell Books

• How can I get better at writing with details and putting more information in my books so my readers learn more? 

Bend III: Using Patterns to Write Show and Tell Books 

• How can I get better at using all I know about writing snap words to write easy-to read pattern books? 

Special Objects + Places

Art as Story: Leaf Person Collage

We read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and wrote about our leaf person.

We used natural materials to make a collage to Show and Tell 

all about our unique Leaf People.

“Children’s stories form the heart and soul of our work.”

We  have launched our writing workshop unit of study by telling the children that we are ALL writers.  We began with storytelling, by showing them how writers think of something real and true that has happened to them in their life. We began by telling a story only in pictures, slowly adding letters, then words. Since most kindergarteners are not in complete control of letters and sounds, at first they may tell their stories only in pictures. Gradually they will add letters and possible words that they know.

Formal Storytelling Time

Stories abound in Kindergarten, as children naturally love tellings stories. Through their talk, children let us into their worlds, so we listen, pay attention, and continue to carve out space where they can talk their way into stories in the company of an audience who values what they have to say.

Their ability to write clear, full, detailed stories has everything to do with having the language with which to say it. When children have a chance to talk their stories through first, they have a better sense of what they want to put on paper. We all have stories to tell, we tell stories about what we know and that the most engaging stories are often about ordinary, everyday things.

Drawing is Writing

For the young child, drawing has a vital role as a way of making meaning. We will be exploring the role of story in art, noticing and discussing important details in various works of art.

“From the time children are babies, they are composing.  Children begin to live a writerly life in their very first attempts to communicate.  As they write on walls with big crayons or a stray marker, as they create a grocery lists alongside their parents, as they build castle towers with blocks and tell fantastical stories, they are writing.  They may not yet call themselves writers but they are innately engaging in the act of writing.  As children join our Kindergarten communities, we can build upon their early writing work.”

“An important intention to bring to our early work with kindergarten writers is believing and conveying to them that they are writers – that they have stories to tell and record, that what they think they can write down for themselves and for others to read and enjoy.  Demonstrating our unflagging faith in our students as growing writers and creating our classroom writing environment as a supportive and resourceful community are chief ways we set students up for early success as writers.”

-Laura Benson (Literacy Consultant and Education Writer)

Unit 1: Launching Writing Workshop

Essential Questions

• What does writing workshop look and feel like? 

• How can we catch our stories and put the whole story down on paper?

• How do we write true stories from our lives?

• How do writers revise their writing?

We launched our writing workshop unit of study by telling the children that they will all be writers this year.  

If you can write your name, you are a writer!

We began by showing them how we as writers, think of something important that has happened to us in our lives and then draw and write about it.  We may first tell a story only in pictures, slowly adding letters, then words and later sentences.

Since most kindergarteners are not in complete control of all letters and sounds, at first they may tell their stories only in pictures. Gradually they will add letters and possible words that they know. 

We tell our stories by drawing at first, then writing, using everything we know about letters and sounds to help us begin to write, then share our stories with friends and family.

Before each writing workshop, children share what they will write about. At the end, children take turns sharing their stories with the whole class and writing partners. 

A key question we ask the children is:

“Does your drawing show something that happened, or is it just something you like to draw? A good way to check is to ask yourself if you could tell the story of your picture out loud to someone.”

First by drawing at first, then writing, using everything we know and are learning about letters and sounds to help us begin to write, then share our stories with friends and family.

We Are Writers !