Oct. 16, 2013
Dear Families,
We are midway through the first term, and I am learning more and more each day from your children! They’ve taught me what it’s like to tell funny stories with an old friend on a sleepover, to swim in the ocean off Discovery Island, and to ride on the back of a dog named Guiness. I’m learning this from your children, who meanwhile are learning to craft literature out of their experiences.
I want to take this opportunity to tell you about writing time in our classroom. As you know, writing is one of the basic subjects in elementary school. Its importance continues to grow as these skills are needed across the curriculum as a form of effective communication. I can tell you that in our classroom there is a great emphasis on writing well. It is my hope that your child will grow in his/her ability to write in many different ways. .
When you visit our classroom, you’ll notice that we set aside time for writing. We refer to our writing time as writing workshop because that’s a term published authors use. It makes sense to borrow their term because the children will follow a writing process used by published authors of novels, poems, short stories, essays and articles.
Dear Families,
We are midway through the first term, and I am learning more and more each day from your children! They’ve taught me what it’s like to tell funny stories with an old friend on a sleepover, to swim in the ocean off Discovery Island, and to ride on the back of a dog named Guiness. I’m learning this from your children, who meanwhile are learning to craft literature out of their experiences.
I want to take this opportunity to tell you about writing time in our classroom. As you know, writing is one of the basic subjects in elementary school. Its importance continues to grow as these skills are needed across the curriculum as a form of effective communication. I can tell you that in our classroom there is a great emphasis on writing well. It is my hope that your child will grow in his/her ability to write in many different ways. .
When you visit our classroom, you’ll notice that we set aside time for writing. We refer to our writing time as writing workshop because that’s a term published authors use. It makes sense to borrow their term because the children will follow a writing process used by published authors of novels, poems, short stories, essays and articles.
In our classroom, we try to engage in the writing workshop every day. It often begins with a 10-15 minute writing lesson (which we call a minilesson) in which I explicitly teach the skills of good writing. I gather all of the writers for this large group direct instruction, and I teach them a strategy or method that they can use to make their writing stronger, clearer, and more correct. After the minilesson, the children work on their own writing. As the students work, I meet with small groups of writers who share the same instructional needs. I also confer with individuals. After the students work on their writing, I often gather them again for a teaching share time. This gives me an opportunity for further instruction and gives children an opportunity to show each other what they’ve accomplished.
Throughout this first month or so of school we have been working on response writing, having the children connect personally to books or events in their lives and respond to them 'thinking deeply' . The children have now started writing personal narratives, which are true stories from their lives. Also, the children will be creating expository paragraphs for the habitat project which we are undertaking. These units are meant not only to teach them qualities of good personal narrative writing and expository writing but they are also designed to help them develop stamina, focus, structure, detail, a sense of purpose, an appreciation for conventions, and an enthusiasm for writing.
As the year progresses, your child will learn to write in a variety of genre, including non-fiction, short fiction, poetry, and narrative. The year will be divided into units which will coincide with projects. During each unit, your child will learn more about qualities of good writing and about writing processes which can be transferred to all their writing. They’ll also learn a variety of strategies to draw upon during each stage of the writing process.
Of course, I’ll also spend considerable time teaching children about qualities of good writing. I am convinced that writing well is a skill that can be taught and learned, and I won’t hesitate to teach children to write well-organized, detailed, compelling texts. I will certainly also teach the conventions of good writing, which include punctuation, grammar, and strategies for accurate spelling. You will see that I encourage children to write first draft writing without belaboring each word, which means that this first draft writing will not be perfectly conventional. Over time, it will be very important that children develop better and better habits, so that it becomes second-nature for them to punctuate, paragraph and to spell high-frequency words correctly. Of course children, will edit and correct their drafts before publishing them.
You may wonder how you can help your child to prosper as a writer this year. The first thing I want to remind you is that for most of us, writing can be frightening. Please encourage your child by helping your child realize that daily life brims with stories that deserve to be told. When your family hears a noise behind the wall and you use a flashlight to find that the noise comes from a squirrel who has been living there, remind your child that this would make a great entry in his or her writer’s notebook! When you get the chance to see some of your child’s writing, for now, it would really help if you give that child what every writer needs above all: an interested, appreciative reader. Read the child’s writing not as a judge, but as a reader, paying attention to the content. If you do this, you will make your child feel like an author, and you’ll make it much more likely that your child will care about writing and will be ready to invest in the hard work required to grow as a writer.
We will have many celebrations of our writing throughout the year, and you will be invited to join some of them. I will be sure to let you know the dates in advance.
We are partners in this incredibly important work of helping your child become a strong and confident writer. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I look forward to our ongoing communication.
Sincerely,
Jane Rees
Throughout this first month or so of school we have been working on response writing, having the children connect personally to books or events in their lives and respond to them 'thinking deeply' . The children have now started writing personal narratives, which are true stories from their lives. Also, the children will be creating expository paragraphs for the habitat project which we are undertaking. These units are meant not only to teach them qualities of good personal narrative writing and expository writing but they are also designed to help them develop stamina, focus, structure, detail, a sense of purpose, an appreciation for conventions, and an enthusiasm for writing.
As the year progresses, your child will learn to write in a variety of genre, including non-fiction, short fiction, poetry, and narrative. The year will be divided into units which will coincide with projects. During each unit, your child will learn more about qualities of good writing and about writing processes which can be transferred to all their writing. They’ll also learn a variety of strategies to draw upon during each stage of the writing process.
Of course, I’ll also spend considerable time teaching children about qualities of good writing. I am convinced that writing well is a skill that can be taught and learned, and I won’t hesitate to teach children to write well-organized, detailed, compelling texts. I will certainly also teach the conventions of good writing, which include punctuation, grammar, and strategies for accurate spelling. You will see that I encourage children to write first draft writing without belaboring each word, which means that this first draft writing will not be perfectly conventional. Over time, it will be very important that children develop better and better habits, so that it becomes second-nature for them to punctuate, paragraph and to spell high-frequency words correctly. Of course children, will edit and correct their drafts before publishing them.
You may wonder how you can help your child to prosper as a writer this year. The first thing I want to remind you is that for most of us, writing can be frightening. Please encourage your child by helping your child realize that daily life brims with stories that deserve to be told. When your family hears a noise behind the wall and you use a flashlight to find that the noise comes from a squirrel who has been living there, remind your child that this would make a great entry in his or her writer’s notebook! When you get the chance to see some of your child’s writing, for now, it would really help if you give that child what every writer needs above all: an interested, appreciative reader. Read the child’s writing not as a judge, but as a reader, paying attention to the content. If you do this, you will make your child feel like an author, and you’ll make it much more likely that your child will care about writing and will be ready to invest in the hard work required to grow as a writer.
We will have many celebrations of our writing throughout the year, and you will be invited to join some of them. I will be sure to let you know the dates in advance.
We are partners in this incredibly important work of helping your child become a strong and confident writer. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I look forward to our ongoing communication.
Sincerely,
Jane Rees