Unit of Study: Fiction Writing

This is a link to a great write up about one of Lucy’s units of study:  fiction.  I am always searching for references to Lucy’s units since many of the teachers I work with use the units as a resource. 
http://bestbookihavenotread.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/unit-of-study-fiction-writing-grades-3-5/

Essay Writing Ideas

Many schools are using Lucy Calkins’ materials and Units of Study.  One of her units includes an essay unit.  Jim Trelease has a site that includes a weekly essay.  It is awesome!  http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/essay-of-week.html  
I am always looking for resources.  This is another site of wonderful resources for us.

Lucy Calkins Writing Kits

 
http://literacybytes.com/  A wonderful site as a Grade 3-5 staff implements Lucy Calkins kits in their building.

Story Telling in Small Moments

Small Moments stories only improves if students know how to tell a story. Lucy Calkins refers to this as storytelling. The staff at the Teachers College that work with Lucy Calkins recommends the following 5 steps for teaching children to storytell as a week long event.
1. The teacher models storytelling an event the class experienced [...]

Small Moment video

http://vimeo.com/1966143
Small Moment examples by Second graders.

Writing about an Object

My mom and a few of her closest friends, painted the nativity many years ago.  The grandchildren and my parents set out the nativity each year on Thanksgiving.  I could write about this tradition of setting up the nativity.  My dad gets the boxes out of the attic.  The little ones are under his feet [...]

Small Moment: Adding Details that Matter

Objective:  Today your job is to remember what your character/person is doing and write down the words of what you see in your mind. 
One of the lessons that my students need is adding details that add to the story instead of boring details.  Typically writers tell us that the sky is blue, the clouds are [...]

Small Moments: Person Who is Significant During The Holidays

Often teachers ask me about topic generation. I also know nothing sends terror down the spine of a teacher, then 20 or 25 children who are complaining, “I don’t have anything to write about.” Obviously, I am exaggerating!   Or a child who has written about the same frog for 26 days in a row. It [...]

Writing about a Class Experience

One writing idea is to have the class experience something, then write about this experience.
-Sing a song, then tell the students about it, have the students turn and talk about it, then the teacher writes about it using story language.
-Line up to come inside from recess. If it is a nice day, instead of going [...]

Small Moments – Narrowing to One Time

We are learning to tell true stories that really happened.  The child is giving lots of examples with the person or the animal.  I can tell lots of times.
Child talking:  I go park lots. I go everyday. I went with mom. I went with dad. I go with dad today. I go with mom today. [...]