We are excited to see many of you at our writing celebration tomorrow morning. What has our class been working on?
We have spent a lot of time and effort writing nonfiction books. In grade two, there is no research component. The books focus on a topic writers already know a lot about. Through practice, writers develop skills to teach readers using a variety of strategies.
Organization plays a huge role in our work as nonfiction writers. Students have to engage in categorical thinking in order to break their subject into subtopics. This is a developmental challenge for many learners in grade 2. You’ll see this in the form of chapters and chapter titles. Many students needed adult and peer support to generate ideas for subtopics.
As always, our writing process emphasized planning through oral rehearsal. Writers struggle to write down ideas if they cannot express them through oral language. Students spent time rehearsing what they would write about so that when the time came to write, they could confidently move forward in implement new writing skills and producing volume.
Students also transferred skills from our nonfiction reading unit into their nonfiction books. You’ll probably notice text features in your child’s book. Diagrams, captions, subtitles, table of contents, glossaries, illustration strategies, text boxes, etc. Writers thought about ways to teach their readers other than just using words….just like the nonfiction books they read.
What specific nonfiction writing skills were taught and practiced?
What was the process students used?
