There's History, Herstory, and Today: Therestory!

In an attempt to find a fun way to practice writing clear and complete sentences, and in an attempt to continue to hone problem-solving skills, this morning I asked the students to write a story. Well, I actually asked them all to write just the first sentence of a story.

Once every student had written their first sentence, I asked them to re-read that sentence to make sure it was clear and complete (subject, predicate, begun with a capital letter, ended with a period or whatever proper punctuation it required). I then encouraged them not to get too attached to that first sentence and whatever idea they had in mind for a story, "because," I said, "I want you to now pass your paper to the person on your right."

I prompted each student to carefully read the single sentence before them, instructing them to check to make sure the sentence was well-written and complete, before adding another sentence to the first to continue the story.

Sitting at their desk clusters of four, the students sent the paper around full circle, until there were four complete sentences on each student's paper. "This," I said, "is the beginning of your story. Now you are moving into the middle where you need to add some action, some conflict." So the students passed around each of their papers once again, adding a new sentence to each paper as it made its way around the cluster of desks.

The final four sentences were written to move towards, and finally end the story.

This afternoon each student read his or her story out loud to the class, and it was wonderful to hear twenty very-creative stories all in a row - each, by the way, written in clear and complete sentences.

Cheers,
Ms. Pitman