by Tammy Westrick (tammyw@isb.ac.th)
As we, as coaches, moved in and out of classrooms around the school over the last two weeks, we saw students excited about learning. This is nothing new at ISB. For me, however, I am seeing a renewed energy towards writing. This year, all grade levels began the year with a non-genre specific unit. This means that the learning targets that are being addressed are not specific to a particular genre. Rather, students show evidence of transferring these new skills and strategies to writing genres of their choice. For instance, in Ms. Terry’s 4th grade class, a mini-lesson on rehearsing as a strategy to use before putting anything down on paper was taught. After this short mini-lesson, students went back and rehearsed what they planned to write in their choice of genre. I saw examples of fantasy, list articles (Top 10 articles), feature articles, How-to’s, personal narratives, etc. This new strategy can be applied to whatever genre they are writing in. The power of choice is amazing! You may wonder how can you continue this enthusiasm of writing at home? Find topics of interest for your child (i.e., mermaids, animals, the Olympics, soccer, etc.). Then ask your child what kind of book or writing could they do within that topic. Ask them about their writing; why did they choose that particular genre or what are they doing as a writer. Then sit down, choose what you want to write and write with them!
