Abuzz with Writing

Today was an exciting day in writing workshop. Every student was absorbed in working on a book, busy illustrating and writing. Voices were quiet as students helped each other and shared their writing with each other.

We began with a mini-lesson that focused on the book "Let's Get a Pup! said Kate" by Bob Graham. I chose this book for us to study for several reasons. First Ellie had written a book on a similar topic last week, and I thought that would be a neat connection to make. Also several students have begun using dialog in their writing, and this book has a good amount of dialog, including in the title. And finally in the About the Author section of the book, Bob Graham speaks clearly about where he got the idea for his book. Now that we have covered a lot of the basic procedures of writing workshop, we are now moving into a focus on where writers get ideas (inspired by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland in About the Authors.)