Writing has always been a difficult subject for myself and my grade level to teach... mainly because we have no real writing program and little resources. So, one of my second grade team members and I attended a writing training and came back with some great ideas for improving our writing instruction. One thing we learned focused on narrative writing with a good beginning, middle, and end. The woman leading the training taught us a great way to teach students how to write a narrative using George and Martha by James Marshall. If you have never heard of George and Martha, they are two hippos that usually have some kind of little problem in each story. The stories are normally three pages long: one page for the beginning, one page for the middle, and one page for the end. We have now been using George and Martha to teach how to write a narrative, and the kiddos are loving it. Each student is coming up with their own George and Martha.
Each George and Martha story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. In the beginning we are introduced to the characters, setting, and the problem. In the middle we see how George and Martha try to fix or solve the problem. And in the end we learn a lesson.
Before my students did their own George and Martha story, we did one together as a class. First we brainstormed problems they could have, then we thought about how it could be solved and what lesson could be learned. Then we put the story together. To really help them understand the layout of the story, I typed ours out and drew a picture for each page :). Here is how it turned out...
I haven't showed our story to the kiddos yet since I typed it and drew pictures for it. I'm excited to see their reaction.
I've made a blank page to match the one I used to put our story we made together on. My students will use three of these pages, plus a title page, to write their story on. Then we are going to put them all together into a book. I'm excited to see how it will turn out. Here is the page they will be using to do their story (they'll use three of these pages) and the cover page...
So, while we're on the topic of writing... Here are some poster sets that I've made to help improve our writing. The first is a writing process poster set (I've included a few extra stages of the writing process that we use in class)... I'm going to put each students name on a clip and set up the posters to the kiddos can move their clip to the writing stage they are in.
Click the picture or click HERE to find this poster set at my TPT shop!
Next is a CUPS editing poster set. You can check out the description of this poster set at my TPT shop if you are unfamiliar with CUPS editing...
For the CUPS editing poster set (shown below) click the picture or click HERE.
For the intermediate set click HERE.
Click HERE for student CUPS job description cards... these go with the primary set.
The last poster set I'm going to share... I promise I'm almost done :)... is my ARMS revising poster set. You can read a description of what they are at my TPT shop...
Click the picture below or click HERE to check out this poster set in my TPT shop.
You can purchase each of these sets separate... or... save $1.00 and purchase these poster sets together (student CUPS job cards are not included in the poster set). Click HERE or click the picture below to purchase the writing process posters, CUPS editing posters, and ARMS revising posters as a set.
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