Reflecting About Writing Instruction

Hey there teacher ,
Welcome to a new week of the Diggin’ Into Next Year series!

The way I structured the “shared research” with 24 seven year olds.

Based on my reflections I made some changes:

1. Instead of doing the shared research in January, I decided {with the help of my sweet teammates} to move this project to the month of June. Once end of the year assessments were done, and the data showed me that my firsties were quite proficient… then I had a little  more freedom to truly guide my students with the shared research. Instead of researching about polar animals, we researched about ocean animals!
2. I divided my students into six groups of four and each group {with a team leader} chose an ocean animal.
3. Once the kiddos were in their groups, I put together “source bags” with different information sources:

4. I also provided my kiddos with writing frames and sections. You can find these frames in my “shared  research for any animal” unit on TpT!

5. I took the time to CLEARLY explain clear expectations and directions, and used a rubric to outline behaviors, writing, and content expectations as well.

6. One  of the things that I have learned throughout the years is to provide my writers with an audience. So they really had to go through the writing process to produce a top notch product. They shared their research during our end of the year awards ceremony and authors’ tea. They rocked it!!