Disappointments

I just finished grading my students' writing proficiency exams. (Yes, teachers grade these.  No, we aren't paid to do so, it's just something that's expected to get done.)

Some of them did a great job with their expository pieces.  For their task, they were given two short informational articles to read and respond to.  In their responses, they were expected to refer back to the text for evidence and write with a problem and solution text structure.  This was their end of year task.

However, upon grading these papers, I became increasingly disappointed.  This frustration during grading is one of the hardest things for a teacher.  The "I know I taught you this!" runs through my mind quite frequently.  There were lots of careless mistakes by many of my students.  

One turned in two drafts, basically saying pick which one is better.  

One wrote a single paragraph.  Not once in the past ten months of school has a single paragraph been a satisfactory answer.

Several turned in work that wasn't complete.

One used no punctuation whatsoever. 

One wrote "thank you for reading my paper" while another ended with the dreaded "I hope you like it."  Neither of  these are appropriate closings.  We've addressed both of these big writing no-no's on every single paper we've written.  These two clearly didn't listen.

Another decided not to use any paragraphs, another wrote no name, another went completely off topic and the final completely disregarded the audience and wrote as if she was writing to her friends and not a formal piece of academic work.

Not a single one used the sentence stems for quoting accurately from a passage.  The sentence stems we went over and have been using all year were completely disregarded.

This is frustrating as a teacher.  I feel disappointed in their essays.  They rushed and I have to score them lower then I'd like because of their silly mistakes.  This is one of the hardest parts of being a teacher.

Expository Writing, Part 3

As I previously blogged about, my students had a wonderful time researching about European countries.  They created brochures which are beautifully decorating our fifth grade hallway.

Since it was Reading Week last week and our schedule was altered, I used some writing time to have my students create informational posters about their countries based on their brochures.

I talked about how this is another way to publish their work and share their information with an audience.  

They had a wonderful time learning from one another and asked really thoughtful questions of one another.  I'm pleased to see how excited they are about researching since they'll be doing a lot more of this in middle and high school!

Happy learning :)

Expository Writing, Part Two

As I previously blogged about, our grade level is working on expository writing.  We split Europe into four parts and each class took a different section.

The students researched using internet data bases such as culture grams and recorded their research in their writing notebooks.

I was excited to get Northern Europe not only because my heritage is from England and Ireland, but because many of my students have read Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, so they were thrilled to get to create brochures on Denmark and Sweden.

Our hallway:

My wall:

(I had some great student helpers!)

My fabulous team members' walls:

Close up of our brochures:

We printed maps from Crayola's website and of course I used polka dot ribbon to connect brochures with the countries!

As an added bonus, one of the fifth grade classes won first prize in the door decorating contest for Reading Week!  We hung the medal in the hallway to share, since we did a thematic unit together.

They had such a wonderful time creating these brochures.  It's nice to see them so excited about what they're learning :)

Expository Writing

We started using the expository nonfiction writing unit in Being a Writer, but it simply wasn't meeting our needs.

This week is reading week and we are doing a travel theme.  

Our grade level was assigned Europe, so we are having our students research different European countries.  Instead of writing a paper, they're making travel brochures and loving it!

We reviewed text structures:

Then brainstormed research questions for each:

We went over a very simple organizer for note taking:

For this project, my students are required to use one print and one digital source.  My librarian shared Culture Grams with us.  I taught my students how to access this from our school's library site.  I like that we have access to different data bases and they're kid friendly!

We went over the outline of the brochure:

I modeled a thinking map about Ireland:

From my thinking map, I modeled writing research questions and then determining which text structure I'd use for my written response:

From there, I set up our hallway decoration using the map my awesome neighbor drew:

Norway, by the way, has a very difficult coast line!

We split Europe into four parts and I got Northern Europe.

Tomorrow we're finalizing our brochures and then our hallway display will be up to date!  I love how excited they are to research and learn about different places.