Writing the 4-Blocks Way

During writing workshop, I try to give a short mini-lesson on some aspect of writing. Early on in the year I introduce the three ways to write a story: drawing pictures, drawing pictures and some letters or words, and using words.

Gradually I introduce things we need to always have on our papers. First it is our name and the date. Next we add a title. Then we check for capitals at the beginning of each sentence. We make sure we have an ending punctuation mark. Word wall words must always be spelled correctly, if not, I will underline it and write WWW beside the word. Students know to check the word wall and correct the word.

We also brainstorm topics to write about and make a big class chart to display. Other mini-lessons include how to make lists to help us come up with words we can use in our writing. We use graphic organizers. We talk about what a "sparkle" word is. (Adverbs and adjectives)

Although most of our writing centers on personal narratives (short stories), we also study sentences, 3-sentence paragraphs, friendly letters, thank-you letters, poetry, research papers, and informational reports.

This is our "Poe-tree"

We study Couplets, Triplets, Cinquains, ABC Poems, and Tongue Twisters.

since 7/21/08