Beginning the writing lesson

I started my journey towards a persuasive essay about the colonial regions by teaching the students how to first write a solid persuasive essay.  I used the district resources, focusing on analyzing counter arguments and using higher level transition words.  When I was happy with the kids' progress, I started to plan out how I was going to bring the colonies into the mix.   I have never enjoyed teaching about colonial life.  I usually jam through it.  I am glad this assignment made me do something different this year.  I had the students jigsaw the three regions and it made all the difference.  They enjoyed it, learned more than my previous classes, and I was proud of their learning.  It was a win-win and they were ready to write persuasive essays.

Wordle Writing Reflection

I realize that when reading my students' writing, I am initialing focused on how well they established their character.  Because they wrote a narrative about a person in history, I guess I am analyzing their work on how well they created that character.  "Think" and "thinking" are also bold words.  I am trying to teach the kids how to think as authors, but at the same time, they have to think as their historical figure would have.