Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Workshop Wednesday - Winning Words

I am joining Ideas by Jivey for her Workshop Wednesday on writing.

Two summers ago a group of colleagues and I did a book study on this book:
Front Cover
I found so many great ideas for improving my students' writing, as well as my own writing.

One of the ideas suggested in the book is to post sentences with unique word choices from great mentor texts.  I prepared an anchor chart for this at the beginning of the school year, but had an AHA moment on the first day of school.

The students did a simple writing piece, and when one student shared his work (which included great word choices) I thought, "Why don't I post sentences from the students that could serve as model work?"
This chart is from last school year.  When I first started posting sentences with winning words, I would also label the sentences with the initials of the student who wrote it.  In any case, the students are so proud to have their work posted for everyone to see.  It really is a motivator, especially for reluctant writers.

The other students also use this chart to improve their own writing.  I underline the parts of the sentence that are "winning words" and others use those parts in their own way in their work.

I still include super sentences from actual mentor texts, and this supports the idea that students are really authors, just like those people who have published work.
Just wanted to share a letter that one of my students wrote to a future third grader during the last week of school.  I was so proud of how well my my learners did with paragraphing and using voice (aka winning words). 

Hope you'll add your ideas to Workshop Wednesday!


15 comments:

  1. This is awesome! Sounds like you do your own version of Mentor Sentences, which is so great for kids' writing! Thanks so much for linking up! :)
    Jivey
    ideas by jivey
    Follow Me On Facebook! :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment. I love reading all the ideas in this linky!
      Jane

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  2. What a great idea to post THEIR sentences that serve as mentor sentences! Love that! I will have to try that for next year!!

    Amanda
    Collaboration Cuties

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    1. Hi Amanda,
      I'm glad you found my idea useful!
      Jane

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  3. I love the Mentor Text book. Their Nonfiction Mentor Text book is fantastic took.

    Hunter's Tales from Teaching

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    1. Hi Bethany,
      I have had the non-fiction version on my To-Read list for awhile now. Hopefully this summer!
      Jane

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  4. I love this book too...so many great ideas and book resources!
    Kheila
    Two Friends In First

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    1. Yes, Kheila - it has so many great book suggestions, too!
      Thanks for the comment.

      Jane

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  5. What a great anchor chart! I LOVE THE LETTER!! That is awesome writing!

    Bridget
    Literacy Without Worksheets

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    1. Thanks Bridget! I thought the letter was great too.

      Jane

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  6. This sounds like a great idea. I have been reading a good deal about modeling good writing and this goes right along with all that I've been reading. :) Thanks for sharing.
    ~Brandee
    Creating Lifelong Learners

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    1. Hi Brandee,


      The models of expected writing surely had an impact on my writers.

      Thanks for the comment!
      Jane

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  7. Love your "Winning Words" chart! I'm also reading "Mentor Texts" right now. Awesome book!

    Jennifer
    Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

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    1. Hi Jennifer,

      Thanks for the comment! I loved the book!

      Happy 4th!🇺🇸
      Jane

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  8. Thanks for this Jane! I too have posted students' words in past but didn't do it last year. This was a reminder that it is powerful and I should reimplement it! I did mine with sentence strips and just did words or phrases. I will reflect on this for a while and see how I will do it this year. I am your new follower!
    Pam
    Rockin Resources

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