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Sunday, March 20, 2016

Writers!!!!!

Slowly but surely I've been trying to get ready for school tomorrow. It isn't easy when you don't feel well! However, I spent part of the afternoon looking at my students' writing. Wow! Finally, I see writers! I see kids with opinions who are trying very hard to support those opinions with evidence and examples. They are choosing their words more carefully, looking for ways to draw in their readers. From the most proficient to the most struggling, each one of these kids is a writer! They have a voice. They use their voices to talk about why things matter to them. For quite some time, they have been really good at looking at samples of writing and sorting the strong and weak. They have become quite adept at picking out what makes good writing strong and engaging. As I read through their essays today, I saw a lot of those qualities in their work. Of course there are some writers who are very eloquent and can incorporate their voice in more mature ways. I am thankful for those students and use their work as mentor texts for our class. I have also noticed some of the more reluctant writers become more confident in their ability and try some of the craft moves they see in other pieces of writing and borrow them for their own. It's exciting! I have to say that I am a HUGE supporter of the Units of Study in Writing (Lucy Caulkins). I think these Units have contributed greatly to my students' ability to lift the level of their writing. My hope for these young writers is that they will take some of what they learn in 4th grade and put that in their Life Skill Toolbox, holding on to some of the craft moves that good writers use. I have said it before, words are powerful... If I can teach these writers that their words matter and are so important, then perhaps I will have helped them become more successful citizens. Their voices matter! The future is bright, that is for sure!

Sincerely,
Tara Reed

8 comments:

  1. Awesome! What an exciting transformation!

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  2. Sorry you're sick, but so happy you are seeing your hard work pay off! Congrats on your room of writers.

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  3. It's so fun to see the writers come through after all your hard work! :) Feel better!

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  4. Hope you feel better by tomorrow. How lovely to be able to see such growth in your students. Calkins work is excellent.Love your line "Their voices matter"!

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  5. I loved it too when I saw real progress in my students. It made me feel I was breaking through and they were really understanding the lessons. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. I especially think that the opinion units allow students to to lift their level of writing. How exciting to see growth in your students. It has to make it a little bit easy to head back to school.

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  7. I hope you got to celebrate with your kiddos today. Joyful moments of reflection like the one you describe in your blog are what make teaching so meaningful.

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