Blooming Authors! Procedural Writing

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It's week four of functional writing: letters, lists, directions, maps, etc!  This journey has been simply amazing.  Within our functional writing genre, my class has dug in deep with procedural writing.  

I'm unsure how others introduce writing in their class, and I realize there are so many different ways to jump start a writing genre study.  For me, I begin with shared writing.  We used our basal story on How to Make a Salad to guide the discussion.  Since this story is a simple vocabulary reader, it allowed us to discuss the details that were missing yet crucial for completing the task.  After planning with illustrations, we stretched our words for the first official how-to! 

The second story in our genre study is guided.  I had the kids use the same topic.  How to Make Crayons in which you can link here to read their writing samples.  Each day, the kids helped make crayons as a reminder but we focused on one step at a time.  We chart ideas and the kids put their own words on papers.  The idea is the same but their writing reflects what they remember and connect with.

The third story in our genre study is 100% independent.  My mini lessons focused on the plan.  I have my sweeties using a four square identifying first, next, then, and last.  With turn an talk in place from readers workshop, the kids discuss amongst each other what should happen within each step.  This is the time that I guide the kids with techniques from In Pictures and In Words during the mini lesson or small groups.  My hopes are to inspire young illustrators.  After a good 10-15 minutes, the kids are off to write their papers...

For this activity, we used Susan Moran's How to Make Hot Cocoa templates from her winter writing packet.  Here are a few samples!!

 I love that everything is black and white UNTIL she gets to drink the cocoa.

Soooo creative!

 So as you can see, they are still a bit similar from their discussion!!

Here's an example of the plan!

This leads up to yesterday and today.  The topics are free choice.   I love to watch what the kids connect with and are willing to share.  My mini lessons for this week include less about procedural steps and more about author's craft.  We worked on titles, punctuation, a snazzy ending.  This is just a two of many amazing pieces...

 This is my race car driver!  Watch out NASCAR!!!

 She is my environmentalist.

Don't you just love their passion for writing?  I feel routines are really in place for our looping adventures!!!  I'm eager to see how the kids will grow as authors in this next year.