My thirty fourth grade students are working very hard at becoming good writers. We have been struggling to put together cohesive paragraphs that use topic sentences, lots of details and then wrapping up our big thought with a concluding sentence that reminds the reader what we were discussing in the first place.  By the end of the school year, fourth graders need to be able to do this well.  Then we push them a little harder!

The next big writing exercise is using powerful words to help us get our point across in more interesting ways.  One way is through a descriptive writing assignment.  Before Spring Break, we started a creative writing piece in order to work on descriptive writing. The assignment is that the students have each discovered a new animal, which is actually a combination of two of their favorite animals.  They have to write an introductory paragraph that describes how they discovered the creature and then they move on to three paragraphs that describe the animal’s appearance, its diet and its habitat. The students then write a concluding paragraph to wrap up the adventure and describe what will happen in their lives from this moment on.

This exercise is a lot of fun for the students as they explore the English language and various ways of acquiring new words.  They can’t believe that Word has a Thesaurus built right in!  I think this blog could become a way to interact or conference with students with their writing in a new way for all of us. It might let us push the envelope a little farther with our technology and how we can put ourselves and our writing into a more interesting light.