Writing Workshop

January  Writing

We will be continuing our Compare and Contrast essay work for the next week   Students will be working on revising and editing and will be publishing their essays by January 15th.

Writing about Reading: January/February

In the next unit we will be working on writing about what we are reading.

In this unit, students will be asked  specific questions about their reading.  They will be taught to think carefully about each question and even to break it apart so they truly understand what they are being asked.  Students will work on matching details from their reading to the answers they come up with and writing their answers in well defined paragraphs.

Reader's Workshop

Reading in January & February

In the second half of January and through February, we will be working in reading short but complex fiction and nonfiction texts.  We will work on different reading strategies to get through and comprehend these complex texts.  Additionally, we will teach students strategies to understand and respond to questions about what they read, using text-based evidence.

Some examples of the different kinds of texts we will be exploring are:

Fiction
-Realistic Fiction
-Historical Fiction
-Science Fiction
-Dramas/Plays
-Fables
-Folktales
-Fairytales
-Excerpts from longer texts

Nonfiction
-Narrative Nonfiction
-Persuasive Nonfiction
-Informational Nonfiction
-Procedural Nonfiction (how-to)

***Throughout this time, it is important that students continue to read their assigned independent reading books at home for at least 35 minutes each day, and work on their assigned reading jobs!