For the past week, we have been working on writing and publishing our very own class book. For the past several years all of the classes here at MME participate in this writing project.
To start off, we brainstormed ideas as to what we would want to write about. We discussed the writing had to be something we all were interested in, since we were writing the book together. To help with ideas, I read books that were written by previous kindergarten classes, as well as two second grade classes. After coming up with several ideas, we decided on writing about what we want to be when we grow up.
To begin the writing process, we orally stated what we wanted to be when we grow up and I wrote those sentences down so I could help them remember the reason why they chose what they chose. The sentence they recited was "I want to be _____ when I grow up, because ________."
The following day, we wrote our first draft. We discussed how when an author writes a book they may not write it perfectly the first time. They usually have to go through several drafts before they decide on a final version. I explained the job of an editor and that I would act as their editor. We discussed parts of their sentence that were great, parts we needed to fix and a few parts we needed to add to make the writing the way we wanted it.
After writing the first draft, we then composed a second draft using the corrections that were made with the first draft. Most of the students were finished after the second draft and were ready to move to the final draft. A few decided they needed to revise a part or two before being ready for the final draft.
Once we decided on the final draft, we discussed the importance of taking our time on the final draft to make sure it was exactly how we wanted it to be so we made the best piece of writing for the reader.
Finally, we completed the illustration in a similar way to the sentence. We drew a practice draft for our first illustration and a second draft. After both drafts, we were ready to complete the final draft for the illustrations.
Below is a short video clip of the students hard at work on their writing and/or illustrations. Busy little bees!
Just curious....do you correct their spelling when you edit or do you allow them to publish with developmental spelling?
ReplyDeleteHello! I do not correct their spelling when editing at the K level. We encourage the phonetic spelling, except for sight words. I correct the word if they place letters that are not heard when the word is stretched out phonetically, but other than that I do not change their writing. Great question! =)
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