Writing Workshop

Students have been hard at work crafting their personal narratives. We have also been looking to the masters of picture book literature for craft techniques that we can use to make our stories stand out in the style of Mo Willems, Chris Paul, Cynthia Rylant and others.

Some effective elements we've noticed are lead offs that hook your reader as well as satisfying endings that let the reader know the story is over without needing to write "The End".  Other areas for our close study have been slowing down the hot spot - that is, drawing out the details of the big moment in our stories or heightening the anticipation for readers by building suspense before a big moment.

Kids have also been learning to spot and incorporate the rule of 3 in which three words are used in repetition (Knock, knock, knock or Vroom, vroom, vroom) or to provide specific details to support an event in our books - I had soccer practice. We had to dribble the ball, take shots on net, and pass back and forth to a teammate to get our skills up.

Finally, when our draft is done, kids have been using lots of techniques to go back in and make their books even better. Some kids read their books to a peer for feedback, others read their books aloud to themselves using a whisper phone. If an unclear or undeveloped page is discovered, a "writer spider" is stapled into place with clarifying details or additional information.

Our hard working authors are ready to celebrate a job well done! On Monday, kids will bring in a stufty (or action figure) to be part of the audience they share their book with.  Next week we will be moving on to an opinion writing unit on book reviews.