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Home : 2007 : April : 9

By NCteacher

My 3rd graders are required to write 3 paragraphs, and we are now slowly working toward 5. For one assignment, I printed a coloring sheet of a cat- just a simple one, but I copied it on ledger size paper. The kids happily
spend 1 whole writing period coloring, creating a background, "pimping" their cats! (vampire fangs, robot eyes....you name it!) Then the next day they wrote a story about the cat- they were some of the best stories I have gotten all year! Great descriptions and details- I think the visual helped them. Of course, that is not writing to a prompt. One prompt they loved was when they wrote

about having a super power- they did really well with that one as well. I don't know what the k-2 teachers have done with these kids, but 90% of the time, they LOVE to write and especially share! It is wonderful- not perfect or anything, but the enthusiasm is there, and I think that a lot of the time, that matters the most.