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November Writing: Dia de Los Muertos and Wait, Wait! Don’t Shoot

November 3, 2014 By fancyfreein4th

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.  screen-shot-2016-11-05-at-3-11-09-pm

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.

The 2nd exemplar is also fun to share because it models good writing techniques but it also allows my class to know a little bit more about me and who I chose to celebrate for this holiday.
 slide05
After they write their first draft, they use the Self Editing Checklist to go over their writing before they turn it in.  Again, this reinforces my expectations AND it made the editing part of our writers workshop so much easier!!!
Here was their final product!  I got the skeleton writing papers from Lita Lita.  This set is on sale right now because there is another day for Dia de los Muertos and your kids still have the opportunity to celebrate someone in their family who has passed away.  Grab it here.

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!

 
This set includes:
– 1 Writing Prompt
-2 one-sided Flow Charts that focus on Cause and Effect and Point of View
-2 circle charts to helps jump start the writing process- great for whole group or small group
-1 t-chart to help students combine sentences with a reason and an explanation
-1 flee map to help the students draft their ideas independently in an organized way
-2 circle charts that review persuasive language and personal pronouns
-2 Thanksgiving Pages for the students to write their final draft on for publishing- great for the bulletin board!
and a Thanksgiving Bunting to add to your bulletin board
Get this festive and persuasive Thanksgiving Day writing here at my TpT store! I pair this writing with the ever so cute, Apples and ABCs Turkey craft.
Check it out here…

 

 

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Filed Under: day of the dead, dia de los muertos, narrative, november writing, persuasive writing, Uncategorized, wait, wait don't shoot Leave a Comment

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