Every week on Llama Tuesday I write a blog post and share it on the Two Writing Teachers blog. Then I comment on at least 3 other posts.
Here are the rules:
WRITE a slice of life story on your own blog.
SHARE a link to your post in the comments section.
GIVE comments to at least three other SOLSC bloggers.
There are 31 days left in 2020 which means I have 31 more writing prompts to publish. Do you have plans for the last 31 days?
I sit in my living room getting prepared to go to the building to work by the light of the Christmas tree.
Yesterday I had a writing conversation with a friend and we were talking about craft. I read a piece yesterday that started too many sentences that began with “I”. It was distracting and took me out of the piece.
All the years I have taught, I have loved to teach writing. I am sure it had something to do with the fact that deep down I want to be a full time writer but that was not an acceptable career choice in my family. I figured that teaching writing was the next best thing.
Teaching kindergarteners to write is a amazing because they have little prior experience.
One of the things I do is avoid having my K student write sentences that begin with “I”. What ends up happening is that later when they are writing more you get pages of “I” statements.
I like dogs.
I like to swim.
I love my mom.
It sounds all the same.
Sentence fluency is something I start with so that is the skill that becomes the habit and not the list of I statements that I would have to try to break later. As often as we can, our shared writing sentences begin with any other word.
Yesterday we learned the sight word GO so the sentences we wrote were:
We go camping. and
We go outside.
Details now are in the illustrations where lots of academic feedback is given. I have also taught them how to give feedback to each other. They discuss what they are writing outloud and then cues are picked up by other students.
In my live class you will often hear: “W. said he is adding a sun. I think that is a good idea and am adding one too.”
or
“I like the way A. added details to his butterfly. I am adding some to mine. He reminded me.”
Of course, one of my favorite questions is: Is it time for writing YET?
What have you noticed about teaching writing this year? I would love to hear in the comments.
