Friday, June 8, 2012

Publishing and Sharing in our Choice Writing Unit

As I wrote in an earlier post, at the end of each year, we teach a Choice Unit in writing workshop where students choose an indpendent writing project to work on as writers.  This year, I have students working on writing newspapers, magazine articles, picture books, chapter books, and playscripts. 
Last week, I taught a minilesson that focused on ways we can publish our writing during this choice unit.  Melanie Meehan was in our classroom at this time so she helped create a chart during the minilesson that visually reminds students of the publishing choices that best fit each genre/type of writing.  During this minilesson, students had to think about and reflect on their type of writing, audience, and purpose, in order to choose which publication idea best fits their piece of writing. 
This week, students planned how they would share their published writing with their audience.  For example, the students writing playscripts for picture book read alouds, are planning to perform one of their plays to our 1st grade book buddies and creating a video of another one to share with the entire 5th grade class in the cafeteria. They are also compiling all of their playscripts into a presentation binder to share with their classmates.  For the students writing  picture books, I purchased hardcover bound books for them to use.  Last week they started off by planning the layout for their book by deciding which text and illustrations they want on each doublespread page.  This week, they worked on gluing the typed text onto the designated pages and illustrating.  Next week, they are reading their picture books aloud to our book buddies and other primary grade classrooms - they are so excited to read them aloud to their audiences! 

Here are some photos of a few picture books that students have written using mentor texts that they chose:


Stay tuned for more photos and an update on how they shared their published writing with others! 

Happy Writing! :)



No comments:

Post a Comment