Love.My.Job!

Writing has been a secret love of mine even though I haven't done a lot of it for fun since I was in high school.  I know that to be a great writer you need to write, so I try to give my students A LOT of time to write.  In writers workshop everyday our firsties have lots of time to write. Most recently we've been working on opinion writing.  We started out by reading mentor texts like....

     

Our conversations revolved around how when writing our opinions we are going to need to try to convince our readers to think or feel the same way we think or feel. Most of our kiddos are really getting this and LOVING giving their opinions!  How powerful this piece of writing is.

We started out writing what we think or feel about winter.  Quite frankly.... I'm done with winter.  I was done the day it started.  Winter is not my favorite season at all.  The cold, yuck. The snow, yuck. The sickness, yuck.  The layers and layers of clothes, yuck, yuck, yuck!  Our firsties are really trying hard to work through this winter piece, but by Thursday of last week, I was like.... get this done already!  I say this with the utmost love in my voice because I really just want them to write more pieces because that's how they'll become better writers.

I'm not sure about you, but writing conferencing is the cherry on top my my sundae or milkshake or anything with whip cream on top. :)  I just LOVE them!!!!  We have such great conversations which leads me to the conference I held with one of our firsties on Thursday.  I started out with the usual..."What are you doing as a writer today?" (Carl Anderson)  He read his story to me and we spoke about how I'd like him to work on his lead for his next piece because while his lead was ok, I'd like him to push himself a little bit.  Have you ever had that type of conversation before?  He shook his firstie head... yes!  So, I continued the conversation with, "What are you working on now?" (His piece was completely finished.) Shoulder shrug.  "Well..... I can see you've started something on your desk.  Do you want to share it?" (The students were able to choose their topic.)  Student: "It's kind of weird." "Ok. Why don't you go get it and share it with me.?."  He did. And this my friends is why I love my job.  :)

He had taken my advice about working on his hook!  If you're having a hard time reading, it says, "Plop, plop. Do you hear that sound? That's the sound of poo.  My opinion is poo is gross."  I was laughing so hard I was the one who interrupted writers workshop.  Oops!  But... this was just what I needed on Thursday to remind me why I love teaching writing so much.  To make it even better, his parents came in for conferences that night and I was able to share this piece with them.  Let's just say they were a *little* embarrassed, but I told them he deserved an ice cream with a cherry on top for challenging himself to write an amazing hook!  :)  I can't wait to read the rest of this piece.