Ms. Smarty Pants : Common Core Opinion Writing

Here is how I am teaching writing this week. It will take us all week to complete the writing.

Today my students walked in to see this anchor chart. (We have done several of these, so I was comfortable putting it all up at one time. If this is the first time you are doing a step-by-step lesson, I would just add the header necessary for the day.)

First, I read the book, First Grade Here I Come! by Nancy Carlson.

(My kids loved this book at the beginning of the year, so it was nice to revisit.)

Then we talked about how they felt coming into first grade. It was a great conversation about their fears and worries, as well as excitement. We talked about how the kindergarteners are probably feeling right about now. I introduced the writing lesson for the day by asking the students what they think about first grade now. What would they tell the kindergarteners to expect? We quickly reviewed opinions, with everyone having a turn to share what their opinion of first grade was.

As they talked, I wrote some of their responses.

I reviewed what an opinion statement is. We also discussed how they will need to write reasons to support it. Then I wrote mine on my chart.

My students wrote their statements. Next, we brainstormed a list of reasons of why we love first grade.

Again, we had some review on explaining why we felt that way. Today, I expected just a brief reason. Tomorrow, they will add details with an experience to justify their reasons.

(We had many interruptions, so we only had time for one reason.)

Here are two examples of the students opinion statements and first reason.

The students shared their drafts, and tomorrow we will pick up where we left off. If you need more ideas on how to use this lesson, I blogged about their favorite ice cream here, here, and here.

Working with Words is my newest product line, I guess you would call it. My students LOVE them! The plus to the students loving these activities, is that I am seeing AMAZING gains in their fluency and their ability to decode. Each set has the same materials, which require very little prep time. By using the same format each week, the students are able to work independent from me on each phonics skill. Now I know exactly what they are doing at word work, and they are held accountable I love, love, love these. I am in the process of creating more and covering all the phonics skills.