A few people have told me that I must have let the children copy from their books, but I can assure you that no such thing ever happened in my room. My students never even copied any writing from the board. It inhibits them from trying to write by themselves.
Writing Samples 2nd Grade Skill: Retelling a Story
I teach my class to visualize while they read. The class is kept absolutely quiet so that they can concentrate. I stand in the middle of the room watching them like a beam from a lighthouse searching the night. I'm watching for anyone who might stop to bother another or anyone who looks uncomfortable, too hot or too cold. While they are writing I watch for anyone who has poor posture, is squeezing their pencil, does not have their paper slanted, has ended up in a chair too big and their feet can't touch the floor, or anyone who is not writing because they are afraid that they can't spell a word.
They have all been encouraged to use their best invented spelling and to write quickly to get their ideas down on the paper. Most papers will be self-edited or have the help of peers and go to a final draft. These papers are final drafts and they were edited only by the children doing the writing, except for the quotation marks; we listened to the child read the paper and asked them, "Who's doing the talking? What are they saying? What do you need? But we didn't correct their efforts to remember where the quotation marks went.
Click here to see the stories of every child in my room. All wrote one page, some wrote two, three, four, and five!
