Chapter 2

I have a hodge podge group of 5th grade girls. I worry that my group is not very "diverse" in the fact that they are all good writers. I see them being able to strengthen their writing by rereading and editing on their own as they write. That I found interesting. Most of them wrote their story, and as they stopped and reread, they "fixed" it and then thought their end product was the "final draft" and it was then finished. I hadn't expected this and decided that perhaps this was the "weakness" I could focus on and plan my lessons around that.

I plan to meet with them for only a couple more hours in a week or two. We are having a hard time getting together based on everyone's schedules and the current round of "flu-like symptoms" that are racing through Westside Elementary where all of the girls attend.

For the assessment I had them write a narrative of one of their favorite memories. I am going to take up having them write articles for the school newsletter as their assignment for this project. I also gave them the Garfield Assessment as other than my own daughter, I had no idea what each girl's attitude about writing was. I can't say I found any surprises. The girls are all interested in writing and enjoy trying different types of writing. My own daughter chooses to write in her "story notebook" at night rather than read a book on some nights. I certainly don't have to overcome any bad reactions/feelings to the writing process.

My lessons include:
1. Choosing a topic relevent to current events in school
2. Fact finding
3. Lead in/Hook sentences
4. Editing/Revising AFTER the article is finished
5. Peer conferencing
6. Final draft to be published in the "Westsider"

I plan to use the internet to help them fact check for their articles. I will provide copies of newletters from the past as well as use actual newspapers to show format and length of articles.
We'll discuss what the students might want to read about. How as students they'd like to make a difference in their school.

As I only have 6 girls, I'll most likely only have 2 conferencing groups, and will make sure they all have the ability to help each other.