This week we have our District Writing Proficiency test. My class has worked very hard on writing narratives the past 2 months. Last week they published their In Remembrance: Dia de Los Muertos writing. 
This is one of my favorite writing assignments because it ties in with my student’s culture and it involves their family. Because I have a class that needs a lot of support and structure while they write, I have included sentence stems, thinking maps and also 2 exemplars.
With the help of Ideas by Jivey, my class has been seeing a lot of examples of GOOD writing with use of her amazing Mentor Sentence units. I wrote two examples to help communicate my expectations, to have them interact with the text and also to analyze and compare and contrast 2 different writing samples. I have prompts that ask them to point out the strengths and weaknesses in both. This can be done whole group or in partners before they start prewriting. I love, Love, LOVE going over our first exemplar. The students giggle at the mistakes and also reflect upon how they write.
So onto our new genre focus- persuasive writing! Every year, my students GOBBLE UP this Writing Activity because it that puts a spin on typical Thanksgiving Day writing assignments. Wait, Wait! Don’t Shoot is a persuasive writing assignment that I have done for years with my 4th- 6th grade classes. In this assignment, the students write from the perspective of the Turkey. As the turkey, they are trying to persuade the Farmer to not eat/hunt them for Thanksgiving dinner. The students come up with hilarious reasons as to why the farmer should forgo a Turkey Feast this year as well as offer up some interesting alternatives to the traditional Thanksgiving meal! I have created a lot of resources to accompany the prompt and help the students understand the art of persuasion!
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