Third graders will improve their existing writing techniques and learn new forms of writing. Some forms that students will write are reports, essays, persuasive pieces, letters, stories, narratives, lists, and poems.
Students will be writing from their own experiences. Also, they will write about texts, both fiction and nonfiction. Students will research topics on the computer as well as from books and articles. Students will also respond to texts that have been read independently or as a small or whole group.
Students will get a lot of practice writing about their own ideas and using details from text or evidence from nonfiction texts to support their ideas. Students will learn the best way to organize their ideas. They will improve how they write complete sentences and they will work on paragraphing and using introduction and conclusion paragraphs. Students will use linking words and learn how to vary their sentences structure and length. Reading a variety of books by renowned authors will inspire students to begin to develop their own personal writing style.
As students begin to develop their own writing style, they will learn that revising, editing, and self reflection and evaluation of their own writing is a critical part of being a successful writer. Students will learn how to analyze a writing prompt so that they understand exactly what they are being asked to discuss. Also, students will use rubrics to understand the expectations for their writing and they will compare their writing to that rubric. They will use the descriptors on the rubric to improve their writing. This will empower the students and motivate them to reach their highest potential as writers.
