Revising with a Partner

"Great lead!"

"I like how you added lots of details."

"You need more dialogue."

"You need to add some transition words."

"This part was a little confusing. What is happening?"

"I like how you ended your story by saying what you learned."

These were some of the comments I overheard as students worked in partners to revise their writing. After several weeks of writing personal narrative stories the students are moving towards publishing their pieces. They had some wonderful suggestions and advice for their peers.  

Reading like a Writer

We are using the picture book Come on Rain by Karen Hesse to analyze the author's craft. Students are using this detailed narrative for ideas to improve their own writing. I read it at the beginning of the school year, but reread it this week for a different purpose. Their job this week was to pick out what makes this story such a strong narrative, and I was really impressed with their responses. The third graders are starting to look at these stories through the eyes of the author and understand strategies that good authors use to make the writing the best it can be.

Student Post - We're crazy for Cursive

We are learning cursive in the classroom. We learned that all the letters connect together. We love to learn how to write  in cursive. Learning how to write in cursive makes us so happy. We can't wait to learn how to write more cursive letters!

By. E.M., E.S. , and N.C.