Suzanne Shall, our Instructional Coach, recently got a
comment on her blog - something to the effect that she should stop posting student work that obviously was done by parents! It was a reminder of how low expectations can tie the hands of our children. Given a daily Readers' and Writers' Workshop beginning the first day of kindergarten, quality instruction and the freedom to choose your topics and write your thoughts, there is no limit to what our first graders can do. Below is just such a piece recently completed during our unit on reports. This engaging report has it all - an introduction and closing, great chapters that stay to the topic, nonfiction conventions (such as a Table of Contents, labels, and even "Fun Facts" as captions to many of the illustrations!) The capitalization and punctuation is almost flawless with excellent word choice and so many words spelled correctly. This is an example of what first graders can do! Enjoy!
I saw this piece of student work on Harbour's bulletin board and was immediately drawn to it. This student did an extraordinary job applying the mini-lessons she's been taught to her writing. In fact, this piece has not only been looked at by many teachers, but also by their students. One day, I was walking by and saw that Miss Evanko's students were all there to read the first graders work. They wanted to see how first graders write so they could make their second grade reports even better. I think you'll agree that making it better than this will be quite a feat! :)
ReplyDelete