Students reflect and analyze their writing

At the end of the year, students are given a writing post assessment to show growth. This post assessment is a personal narrative and was the very first unit we taught. Therefore, we have chosen to do a mini review and have students practice writing in that genre one more time before they have to complete the assessment. 

After talking to my literacy coach and the other teachers on my team, we wanted our students to really own the process and the important components that make a personal narrative. Therefore, we used the rubric that their piece will be graded on and had students analyze their piece. This rubric was a kid friendly rubric with "I can" statements. 

The mini lessons for these three days didn't include anything new which made it extremely student directed. We used previously made anchor charts to pull the important parts into the rubric. At the beginning of the mini lesson, I introduced the rubric to the students. They then helped me craft examples of the components by using anchor charts. I then modeled how to use the rubric to analyze your piece by using a piece I had created. I used marker to underline each component so that I could prove and recognize that I actually had a lead, an ending, dialogue, etc. Students were extremely engaged and then couldn't wait to go analyze their own piece. Students also reflected on their writing by noticing what they do all of the time and what they need to add more of. As a class, we noticed that we were rockstars at having ellipses, but needed to work on having transition words in our pieces. 

After reflecting on this process, the best part was that students were actually naming the components of a personal narrative piece. Those who noticed the components that were missing were able to add them in by using marker. The marker stood out to prove that writers re-read and check their work and then add more to the words, if needed. I had one student realize that their piece was covered with marker. As I like to say, THAT WAS A PERFECT LEARNING MOMENT and a time for conversation! I mentioned that if you have included ALL parts of a personal narrative, then your piece should be full of color. The color would be your evidence as to how you included structure, development, and conventions within your piece. 

Here are the examples of our anchor charts that we created with the rubric. On Monday, we will reflect on the entire process and set a personal goal for writing narratives. 

 

Mother's Day Craft!

You light up my life!

Here is a cute Mother's Day magnet craft that I did with my students.

What you need:

• blue paper
• yellow paper
• yellow paint
• ribbon
• sharpie
• magnets

*Laminate for durability!

Please visit http://www.craftymorning.com/firefly-light-life-mothers-day-card-free-printable/ to receive a FREE print out of the mason jar. 

Becoming an Expert at a Book

All year, one the biggest habits that readers practice is to re-read their books to scoop up more words. This helps them make their voice smooth (fluent) and to also pick up new information from their book (comprehension).

We did just that and then MORE!

Our last two fiction reading units had similar concepts in them so we were able to dig deeper into the concepts that were being addressed. With my wonderful first graders ready to move up into second grade, we decided to take our oral conversations centered around our books and actually WRITE about it.

We all know that if you can say it, then you can write it.

Reader's workshop is where all of the work began. In every reader's workshop, it begins by having a mini lesson. The mini lesson was used to address the concept being taught and then students took out their expert book to practice the concept by talking about it to their learning partner. During this time, I was able to confer with students and teach in on any confusion they had. I also was able to push students to expand on their thinking by having them give support to why they were thinking that. They then took a few minutes to write down their thinking. For the remainder of reader's workshop, students read other fiction books and looked for the same concept that was addressed in the mini lesson.

Each child chose ONE expert book and zoomed in on...

• setting
• characters
• beginning, middle, end
• character's feeling
• character traits
• favorite part 

Why did I choose to do this?

• It gave me an opportunity to know the story that each child was reading from beginning to end so that I can help assess their thinking on skills being taught
• It allows students to talk about their books
• Students get to introduce their books to other friends which can encourage other students to read the book that they read
• Students become fluent with reading it and understand all parts of their book

When we were done, students all celebrated their hard work and put their expert book back into the leveled bins. Students couldn't wait to read a book that their friend read and talked about!

We added our hard work to the hallway!

A close up of what students did!

Central Message

After our work we did with finding the theme of the books we were reading, we found the central message of each book. 

Students took a closer look into each book by wondering...

• What does the author want me to know?
• What does the character learn?

I always remember having a really difficult time finding the central message of the books that I was reading as a child, but I truly believe the work we did all year has helped make it easier for my first graders to complete this work. 

Here is the work we did with our mentor texts...

Students then found the central message in the books that they were reading!