February/March Progress of Writing Lessons

Students in my classroom are making great progress in their current social studies writing.  Since Kristin Stanton and I are a very collaborative two-person team, we have decided to do both writing activities for each of our groups.  Currently, my students are working on Kristin's project, which is a persuasive letter encouraging a family member to move from England to an assigned colony.  We have recently received Google Chromebooks in our classroom, so this has become the core project in our colonial unit of study.  Students have been able to research their colonies using the Colonial Live Binder that we created for our research reports during last year's foundation work.  After students did their research (using LiveBinders, Harcourt and Social Studies Alive texts, and nonfiction research books), they began typing their persuasive letters on Google Docs.  Students are getting teacher and peer feedback through sharing and comment features on Google Docs.  Additionally, each student is creating a Colonial Billboard on Glogster to pair with their letter and convince relatives in England to join them in their colonies.  Differentiation is happening on multiple levels - availability of information was taken into account when assigning colonies, students worked in homogeneous pairings to do the research and plan/organize their persuasive arguments.  Small group and individual conferences have been held daily to scaffold student learning.

Up next, "Two-Voice" Poetry focusing on events leading up to the American Revolution. We plan to use literature and nonfiction resources to provide the informational resources students will need.  Students, again, will type their poetry on Chromebooks and add both of these projects to a digital portfolio that will be a keepsake from their 5th grade year, as well as the "main event" at our Open House in May.

Group Work Reflection

Since I am just returning from maternity leave, I had not completed the last lesson, but I was so impressed by what was created and implemented in my group.  It was interesting to see the different approaches used to deliver the same standards and to view the outcomes of the differing teaching styles and strategies.  I am looking forward to implementing the lesson through my persuasive writing instruction in the coming months.  I find that students are so intrigued by the Lost Colony of Roanoke, however, we brush past it so quickly.  Diving deeper into the theories of what happened to the lost colonists is a fantastic way to dive deeper into historical thinking about this early colonial time period, as well as introduce the persuasive writing genre.

Roanoke Writing Wordle

I love the fact that the largest words support the nature of the assignment.  The students will be doing a "writing" activity where they present "theories", "evidence", "opinions", and "support"! Wordle is a quick and easy way to determine student understanding through reflection, as well.  Kids will enjoy creating them, and I will enjoy using it as a quick tool to see how focused their reflections are in relation to the learning objective.