We celebrated publishing our memoirs yesterday by inviting teachers, staff, and seventh & eighth graders to listen to our work. It was a beautiful way to take pride in and share our work.

Many of the students shared their pride by talking about what they learned about the writing process, how they’ve grown as writers, and how surprised they were about needing to make multiple drafts before feeling totally ready to say, “I’m done.” 

Every student grew dramatically through this writing process. Please know that published drafts in fifth grade are NOT “perfect” examples of writing. Because each student has different needs, your child may have focused on adding detail while another student may have focused on punctuating dialogue and integrating more complex punctuation. In fifth grade we don’t work on every single writing skill at once, we choose the highest priority for each student. 

I am so proud of their work and I know you will be too! They are taking home their work today, please make sure to have them share it with you!

After break we will dive into biography writing and non-fiction reading! 

In revising our memoirs, it became very apparent that everyone needed a review on how to properly punctuate dialogue in writing. So, this week’s Word Work Wednesday was dedicated to just that! We reviewed the three forms of dialogue tags and how to properly use quotes, commas, end marks and capital letters.

Then the kids were able to practice this with partners and eventually go back to their own writing. First they checked to see if they had even included dialogue, an important aspect of memoir,  and then checked for correct usage of punctuation. 

This lesson also led to a great conversation about the word, “said,” and how if overused, it could make writing really boring. We generated an entire list of words we could use instead!

I reminded the class that writing has SO many rules that I never expect them to memorize or master them all – but that we will review the rules, put tools in our binders, and refer back to them when we need them! 

Just like in real life, different characters can add a range of emotions and experiences to a text. This week we talked about the importance of a variety of character types in literature. We reviewed how to think about characters- through their words, actions and thoughts- and how to document evidence that supports their development, or lack of development throughout a story. 

After two mini lessons, students had the chance to practice identifying different characters in a variety of picture books. It was a really wonderful opportunity to practice our close reading skills, pulling out evidence specifically from the text to support our thinking. 

After using a graphic organizer to support character analysis, the kids now understand how they can write about character types, traits and evolution in their thinking journals.