Thrills and Frills in First: You've Got The WRITE Stuff, Baby...

A little throwback title to NKOTB =) ....

This month we've been focusing on informational writing, which is a daunting task... well, that was until I found THIS post from Sugar and Spice in Second .... she made it all seem so easy, I knew I had to try it...

To prepare my students, for the past month, they have been writing "micro-essays" EVERYDAY in their journals... Underlining the topic, three details, and closing sentences has become second nature to them.

Since we were in the midst of our Frog Unit I knew that it was now or never ... It was my chance to push my students to their limits .. It was "Genius Essay" time. As we gathered on the carpet I told them that they would be writing a 3 paragraph essay. Needless to say, they looked at me as if I was crazy. One of my Firsties even raised his hand to tell me that his 5th grade brother is writing a 5 paragraph essay, and that we were only in First Grade and we couldn't possible do that.... I told him to let his brother know that he has a little competition coming his way =) Once my students were fully motivated we went over our anchor chart. I COMPLETELY copied Christina's... nothing fancy, just straight to the point...

As a class, we discussed topics that we could include in our essays. We agreed on; the life cycle of a frog, predators, and the different species of frogs. Once our topics were chosen, we wrote our "triple whammy sentence," and underlined each topic with orange, pink and purple.

Below are some pictures of my students' final piece... I forgot to take pictures of their rough drafts with the underlining (eeeekkk sorry!) I'll add them tomorrow .. It took 3 days to write the first draft of their "Genius Essay." I broke each paragraph into a different day, so they were not overwhelmed. I have to say, they did an amazing job!