Shared Writing

The students are working on their last large writing project of the year: an expository essay on an endangered animal.  They have been hard at work doing research for their paper, and some of us have even finished.  As we all start to get closer to the next step, it means that we'll begin drafting.  To start our papers, we plan on writing an introductory paragraph.  This can often be a hard, wordy task and one which I like to model first for the students (do an example for / with them first).  Today we did just that and then the students participated in shared writing with a partner or small group to write an introductory paragraph together to get our papers started.  It was GREAT to see the collaboration between the students.

Busy Little Writers

4th Grade Purple has made tremendous strides in their writing.  We are currently finishing our creative narratives - a 5 paragraph fictional writing piece.  We have taken great pride in our writing and each student has diligently worked through the writing process from start to finish.  I hope you will enjoy reading our stories just as much as we enjoy sharing them.

Peer Editing

As we work through the writing process, we not only self-edit and revise our work but we incorporate peer editing as well.  Whenever we have a written piece, it's always good to have fresh eyes peruse our work and help us make our writing better.

Yesterday we talked about what good peer editing is.  It is:
*active listening
*providing positive feedback
*working WITH our partner to help improve their writing by giving suggestions and asking "How could we _________________?" (enhance the sentence, increase your word choice, etc).

We also noted that since we're helping each other out, we don't make marks on the other person's paper - they do that themselves.