Saturday, September 18, 2010

Drafting A Piece

On Friday, my students and I began looking at the ways we use our notebooks on a daily basis and deciding when it was time to move from our notebook to drafting a lesson.  My activity idea stemmed from a post last year from Two Writing Teachers.

As we began to brainstorm what works in our notebooks and how it looks different outside the notebook. I realized how far these kids have come in four short weeks.  As we began to discuss the importance of choosing a seed idea to grow their excitement began to take over. At this point in the workshop I stopped and we made the plan for our writing time together and I was then able to watch as my fifth graders dialogued with their writing partner about their notebooks and why certain entries are in the running to draft and others were not.  By the end of the 20 minute session most of my students had an idea and were writing away adding to the entry and discussing with their partners how to make it better.

This next week students will be drafting and honing in on their writing craft in whole group and small group instruction.  I will also meet with kids daily to confer about their writing and growing real writers.  Where are you at in writer's workshop? Generating ideas?  Honing the craft through drafting?  Publishing? 

No comments:

Post a Comment