Writing Lessons

For me, writing is one of the hardest subjects to teach.  We don't really have a writing curriculum to follow (we don't have any curriculum, just standards), so we make it up on our own.

Luckily I have a great team and we work together well to share the responsibility of lesson planning.

Last year, I wasn't thrilled with my writing plans or instruction.  I was okay with writing, but it was the subject I'd often skip on days we had assemblies, project based learning lessons, counseling lessons, etc.  I think that dismissive attitude rubbed off on my students because they didn't seem to value writing either.

So instead of keeping with the status quo, I decided that this year I would be teaching writing first thing in the morning and do a more explicit job with modeling all steps of the writing process.  

I also made sure that if we skipped a day in writing, we skipped math or reading the next time.  More importantly, I verbalized this skip and why to the students.  I think there is value in them hearing me state that all subjects are important and that's why we take turns skipping them when other things arise.  

I also am explicitly teaching language mini-lessons instead of having them sprinkled throughout the writing instruction.  Fifth graders could handle these sporadic truth bombs, but the third graders (at least my group) need a more systematic approach to language.

At seven weeks in, here's what we've covered:

They just finished their first papers (autobiographies) and we're transitioning into personal narratives.  We'll do a few short writes, focus on conclusions, character traits, adjectives, and more typing mini-lessons.

We'll also be doing the Monster Project, but more on that later!