I was rather disappointed with my students writing this week and have been reflecting on why and what I can take away from it. We have been doing writing prompts off and on all year. In February, our homework centered around prompt writing and receiving feedback. The students were doing really well and I was proud of their growth. So, when I looked through their writing this week, I was shocked to see that only 7 out of 53 students remembered to have an opening sentence and 5 out of the entire group had a closing. I even had one child use only one period for a two page writing piece. I was so disappointed. I read many of the opening sentences to the students and had them give a thumbs up if it was an opening sentence. They could do this rather well but it was not transferring to their writing.
One thought is that we have been doing poetry for the past several weeks which follows a different structure and does not require typical correct punctuation and capitalization. Corey and I have had several conversations around switching our poetry units to either the beginning of the year or end. I am not sure how much this affects their narrative writing.
Another thought, is that writing is truly developmental and must spiral through the curriculum each year. Similar to math, it must be revisited on a regular basis and built upon previous learning. I will continue to contemplate this as I think through a restructuring of my writing curriculum for next year.
