After Thanksgiving break the third and fourth grade language group enjoyed listening to The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. They drew portraits of A. Wolf and then composed character descriptions on the computer. The students were developing details in their sentences.
Fifth graders continue to learn about expository structure in writing. They read an article about Hawaii to practice using context to infer meaning of unknown words and used a graphic organizer to identify key ideas, supporting details, and elaboration in the passage.
Students at the junior high practiced stating an opinion, providing support or reasons, giving examples, and making a personal connection to the topic. They were challenged to not only express a viewpoint, but to justify their response.
All of these activities encouraged students to elaborate! We will continue to focus on support and elaboration in the coming weeks.
