Writing
These station activities are dedicated to developing students writing composition and mechanics skills. Letter formation is addressed in the word work section.
In each station, students create a product to make their thinking visible, and writing is often connected to reading. Students should always respond in writing to the best of their ability, even if they are labeling pictures with words.
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Composition Skills
Organization of Ideas
Graphic Organizers
Provide students a graphic organizer appropriate for the writing task to help them organize their ideas, such as the Story Structure organizer for a narrative or a flow chart for a "How To" piece.
Color-Code
Once students have brainstormed their ideas and written them into paragraphs, have students color-code the different components necessary for the particular type of writing. For example, they could highlight topic and conclusion sentences in blue and details in yellow.
Fill in the Details
Provide students the topic sentence and concluding sentence for a paragraph. Have them list three details that could be discussed in the paragraph.
Additional Ideas
Jennifer Serravallo's The Writing Strategies Book includes additional activities to support organization of writing. Each core classroom should have a copy of this book.
5.2 Say Say Say, Sketch Sketch Sketch, Write Write Write (p. 169)
5.7 Organize in Sequence (p. 174)
5.8 Uh oh... UH-OH... Phew (p. 175) Example
5.9 Beef Up the Middle (p. 176)
5.10 Question-Answer (p. 177)
5.13 Start with a Table of Contents (p. 180)
5.16 Moving from Chunk to Chunk (p. 183)
5.27 Draw Out (Don't Summarize) to Build Suspense (p. 194)
5.29 Multiscene Storyboarding (p. 196)
Sentence Creation
Sentence Builders
Have students use a Sentence Building Chart to map out some or all of their sentences. This will help them ensure each sentence has a subject and a predicate
Sentence Checker
Provide students a draft for the writing activity that has both complete sentences and incomplete sentences. Have students highlight the incomplete sentences and turn them into complete sentences. The artificial intelligence in ChatGPT provides a quick way for teachers to develop a draft on any topic that they can modify for their students. Provide ChatGPT with a prompt like, "Write one paragraph on the desert habitat at a 2nd grade reading level." Then, modify some of the complete sentences so they are incomplete. Copy and paste the paragraph into a draft for students to revise.
Mentor Sentences
After discussing a mentor sentence with students during whole group instruction, provide students a template to assist them in creating their own version of the mentor sentence. Mentor sentences from texts being read in class are best, but the examples in Mentor Sentences can be used, as well.
Word Choice
Picture Prompt
Have students use pictures to help them add description to their writing. This can be done with both fiction and non-fiction pieces. See Adding Description for more information.
Check Out The Writing Strategies Book
Jennifer Serravallo's The Writing Strategies Book includes additional activities to support elaboration and word choice. Each core classroom should have a copy of this book.
Elaboration:
6.2 Add More to Your Pictures (Then, Maybe More to Your Words) (p. 213)
6.9 "What Else Happened?" (p. 220)
6.12 Cracking Open Nouns (p. 223)
6.14 Show, Don't Tell: Emotions (p. 225)
6.19 Read, Sketch, Stretch (p. 230)
6.20 External Character Description (p. 231)
6.25 Cracking Open Verbs (p. 236)
6.27 Picture Your Character (p. 238)
Word Choice:
7.1 Onomatopoeia: Sound Effects (p. 262)
7.3 Precise Nouns (p. 264)
7.23 Not "So" "Very" "Nice" (p. 284)
Mechanics Skills
Grammar
Write & Highlight
After modeling a grammar skill and practicing it together as a class, have students use it in their writing and highlight each time they use it.
Swap & Hunt
After modeling a grammar skill and practicing it together as a class, have students use it in their writing and then swap writing with a partner. Each partner highlights examples of the newly-learned grammar skill in the other partner's writing.
Mechanics
Write & Highlight
After modeling a mechanics skill and practicing it together as a class, have students use it in their writing and highlight each time they use it.
Swap & Hunt
After modeling a mechanics skill and practicing it together as a class, have students use it in their writing and then swap writing with a partner. Each partner highlights examples of the newly-learned mechanics skill in the other partner's writing.