Writers Sharing Writing

Over the past few weeks, we have been enjoying the literature of Mem Fox. In Reader's Workshop, the children have made connections to her works in Reader's Response notebooks, charted similarities and differences on Venn Diagrams, and retold the stories using story maps. In Writer's Workshop, we used Mem Fox as our Author Mentor. We wrote great beginnings like Mem Fox, told stories with some great details like Mem Fox, and always stayed in the moment for a great ending, just like Mem Fox. As our mentor, her books were used as a model for students to borrow some of the wonderful ideas and techniques of Mem Fox in our Small Moment (personal narrative) pieces. One of the classes' favorite activities is to share their writing with each other, much like they do when partner reading. They take turns and read their writing to each other. Each reader/writer can use this time to make edits to their writing from suggestions from their peers. They compliment each other on the great writing they are doing and everyone feels very special. They take this reading and editing time very seriously...as you can tell from the pictures. Mem Fox would be very proud...as are we!!