Committees For Writing Workshop

In Writing Workshop, we are improving through the use of committees. Each class has a Revision Committee and an Editing Committee. As students move through the writing process, the committee members help improve writing, peer tutor, and assist with grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The process includes:

Step 1 Thinking, Prewriting, First Draft
Students can either write out the first draft or type it on a computer. If they write it out, they type it before going to step 2.

Step 2 Revision Committee
A member of the Revision Committee reads the first draft and writes down any questions he/she has as they read.

Step 3 Revise Content
Students use the questions to revise and improve the content.

Step 4 Editing Committee
Once students have checked their writing for mistakes, they go over it with a member of the Editing Committee checking for errors in spelling, sentencing, punctuation, and capitalization.
Students clean up mistakes, and print out a clean copy. Students then meet with a different member of the Editing Committee for a final look, checking for any mistakes.

Step 5 Correct Mistakes, Final Draft
Students correct any remaining mistakes, and give their essay a final look.
Students then print a final draft and turn in to be graded.

6-B Revision Committee

6-A Revision Committee

6-B Editing Committee

6-A Editing Committee

Peer Tutoring at Work

Congratulations to our Study Island Students of the Day, Catherine and Scotty!

Singing in Class

We sing daily in reading class. The lyrics are shown on the wall with a DLP projector. Students read the words as they sing. This helps students build fluency. They learn to read words in chunks, and look for familiar phrases. We also work on vocabulary. Since we started this several years ago, it has consistently improved students' reading levels, and improved test scores. It also is a great way to learn while having fun.

Currently we are singing Welcome to the 60's. This is from the movie Hairspray.

We are revising the friendly letters. We have been working on writing on topic, and supporting that with details from the book. We are also editing with focus on capitalization, punctuation, and correct letter format.

A student (who I won't name Shayna) followed the rules for capitalization to the T. Our NOTES for the day were:

Capitalize
1.first word in a sentence
2.proper nouns—names of people, places, and things
3.first letter of words in a title
4.I

When this unnamed student (Shayna) brought up her paper, every I on the page was in cap's. The NOTES now say, "I when used as a word." She made my afternoon and I am still smiling about it.


Congrats to our Study Island Students of the Day, Shelby C. and Caleb F.

Read at Home Logs are due tomorrow--Friday, September 7.