Informational Writing Checklist and Rubric

As students progressed through the writing processes of revising, editing, peer editing, and teacher conference we wanted to make sure that they were keeping all of the mini-lessons and expectations that they have been exposed to throughout the unit in mind.  I created the following checklist so that individual students, their peer editors and teachers would know what to look for when reviewing students’ work.  

 

We found that this checklist was incredibly helpful for a variety of reasons.  It allowed students to check their own work before proceeding to a peer conference.  Secondly, it enabled students and their peers to have a quality conversation during peer editing.  Students were able to give their partners specific feedback around the items that they needed to work on as well as the parts of their work that were going well.  Finally, the checklist is directly connected to the following rubric that we will use to score student work.  

The criteria for the rubric were taken directly from the checklist so there are no surprises for students and grading is consistent for teachers.  Each category is weighted differently for a total score point out of 100.  

 

Publishing Party!

For the past two months our students have worked hard to become experts on topics relating to the Great Depression that tie into our whole class novel, Bud, Not Buddy.  They researched their topics online and wrote informational pieces to share their knowledge.  Despite the many struggles that the students and I have experienced along the way with this project, I could not be more proud of them and the work that they have accomplished. I wanted to keep publishing options open to invite students’ creativity into the process and I am so pleased with the results!  Students were able to publish their written work as an essay, with an accompanying picture and caption, or to split their work into sections in the style of an informational page that might be found in a non-fiction text.  Here are a few examples of the fabulous student work that will be debuted during tomorrow’s publishing party!

Sarah is an expert on Jazz musicians during the Great Depression!

Eric is an expert on the struggles that African American teenagers faced during the 1930s!

Tatyana (who is Sarah’s best friend) is also an expert on Jazz musicians during the Great Depression 🙂

Tomorrow we will be hosting a publishing party so that students can learn from one another’s work.  I am beyond excited to see my first informational writing unit come to a close!

5th Grade Integrated Research Project

Our 5th grade students are reading the whole class novel, Bud, Not Buddy.  My hope was that they would fall in love with the book, just as I have.  Fortunately, Christopher Lee Curtis did not let me down; our students are thrilled with the author’s words and enamored with his main character, Bud.  Because Bud, Not Buddy naturally engages children, I wanted to design a writing unit that feeds off of and fuels their excitement.  Integrating reading and writing is something I have aspired to do since I began teaching and now I have the chance!

Somewhere around my 10th read of Bud, Not Buddy I began to imagine this research project taking shape.  Christopher Lee Curtis makes countless references to historical events and happenings of the 1930’s.  I noted these references as potential research topics for students and came up with the following list:

• The Great Depression
• The Labor Movement
• Michigan in the 1930’s
• Racism in the 1930’s
• Women’s rights in the 1930’s
• Unions
• Jazz Music in the 1930’s
• The Stock Market Crash
• The New Deal

I introduced the project to students via the following documents:

General Expectations of the Project

Potential Topics

An Opportunity for Students to Reflect and Share Feedback after Day 1