In first grade, for "Writing Workshop," we will study three units of writing: Narrative, Informative, and Opinion. The curriculum we use is Lucy Calkins.
Unit 1: Narrative Writing
For Narrative Writing I will be teaching our students how to write stories about the little events of their lives. I am hoping that instead of writing “all about my dog,” a child will write the story of losing her shoe and finding it in the dog’s bed, and that instead of writing all about a friend who is moving, a child will zoom in and chronicle the step-by-step story of saying good-bye and seeing the moving van pull away. You may wonder how any of this is possible when children are just learning the ABCs of writing. Here are the steps we will be teaching:
Every child thinks of a true story and draws the story out across several pages with pictures (quick sketches). They draw a picture for what happened first, then a picture for what happened next, and finally a picture for the end.
Then, the child returns to the pages and writes the words of the story. Some children label the pictures, while others write sentences. Here we encourage students to write a letter for each sound they hear in a word. Our goal is to encourage confidence and independence, and we allow for inventive spelling.
Every child learns to add details to his or her story, and the children return to their drafts to add details both to their pictures and their words.
Click HERE to see the steps that I will be sharing with the students.
The children will write lots and lots of stories, and in a couple of months it will be time for them to choose one story to fix up and fancy up for publication. We will have an author celebration to mark the ending of this unit, and you’ll receive an invitation to that event.
Unit 2: Informational Writing, i.e. "Teaching Books"
For our second writing unit, we will focus on informative and explanatory texts. Believe it or not, by the end of this unit, your child will be writing multiple paragraphs about a single topic. Your child will learn how to organize his/her writing into chapters. Please talk with your child about topics that he or she is an “expert” in. Topics about which your child knows a lot about and can write factual information about (favorite sports, animals, activities, places…).
For this unit, please have your child bring in a 1 inch three-ring binder.
Click HERE for a link to a good one on Amazon. It can be any color, new or used!
Here are some popular topics students have written about in previous years:
Rainbows
Recess Games
Legos
Puzzles
Holidays
Sports
Types of Weather
The Seasons
Birthday Parties
SRCSA Teachers!
Pets
Instruments
Cars
Planets
Birds
Families
Dinosaurs
Cereals
Flowers
Fruits
Disney Characters
Faires
Pokemon
Gymnastics
Surfing
Minecraft
Sleepovers
Horseback Riding
Fishing
Pizza
Also, please discuss things that have steps in a process that your child knows how to do (easy recipes, art projects, how to play an instrument, how to do the steps of a simple dance, chores, how to care for a pet…). Students will be encouraged to include “how-to” chapters in their books. For example, if your child writes a book about winter, s/he might include a chapter about “How to Build a Snowperson.”
Over the course of our unit, students will be writing about several different topics and can change his/her topic at any time. If you haven’t started yet, this is a great time to begin to read informational books with chapters to your child.
As a reminder, here is the writing process that we follow:
Planning, Drafting, Revising (with a teacher and with peers), Editing (with a teacher and with peers), Publishing.