Pumpkin Stories!

Hi everyone, it's Becky! I've had this post saved for awhile now, but haven't found the time to finish it. So here I am, almost a month later, finally ready to post it! 

 Although I like to change up my writing projects from time to time, we always begin by writing pumpkin stories. They are an easy way to display the writing process in an introductory format. The first thing we had to do was read a variety of fiction and non-fiction books about pumpkins. As we were reading we filled out our pumpkin anchor chart.

From there I modeled how I completed a four square of my own. As I'm modeling, I stress that when completing each box, they should only be writing a few words and drawing a quick picture. The topic goes in the diamond, that is where we begin and end our story. From there, we have four details, so we number the boxes one through four. Box one will have the color of our pumpkin, box two is an adjective describing the pumpkin, box three is where we got our pumpkin, and box four is what we will do with our pumpkin. 

When it is the students' turn to complete their own four square, we do it one box at a time. For each box, we brainstorm possible ideas, and I write them on the board. After our list is complete, I read over them and have the students choose one to put in their square. They also draw their quick picture to go with it.

Once our four squares are complete, we are ready to write our rough draft. Because it is our first story, I scaffold a lot of it. As I stated before, we start and end at the diamond, so we first come up with a few choices for our beginning sentence. (I read some of the beginning sentences from our pumpkin texts to inspire us.) The students then picked one and wrote it down. 

Beginning Sentence Choices

We then went square by square thinking of a sentence frame for each one. The students then wrote the frame, adding whatever they had in their four square where appropriate. (Note: We will not always all use the same frame, but this is the best way I've found to introduce writing with my kiddos.)

Sentence Frames for the Four Squares

Once we have written about all four squares, we then go back to the diamond for our ending sentence. We read ending sentences from the same books we looked at for beginning sentences, and used them as a jumping off point for our own endings. Students picked one choice and wrote it as their ending sentence. 

After they have finished writing their rough draft, the students read it to me as I type their story. I don't have them write a final copy early in the year because they just aren't ready for it yet. (As the year goes on, I alternate between typing their final copies and having them write them when publishing.) I also like to have them read it to me because as they are reading it, we can talk about any thing that may not sound right as they read it. We then make our revisions right there on the computer. Once all students have their stories typed, they make a pumpkin that matches the description in their story and glue the final product all together. We then have a sharing session, giving the students another opportunity to read and share their writing with their peers.

As the year goes on and the students have a better idea of how to go through the writing process, there is less and less teacher guidance. The students have the autonomy of creating their own stories. 

That's all I have for you today, have another great week with your students! It's conference week for me, so it's sure to be a busy one!
~Becky