Writers Workshop for First Graders - Personal Narratives (Part 2)

In our last unit of writing the students made a movie in their minds and illustrated their events on paper.  In this next class, the students will learn that writers take time to plan their stories across pages. They will also learn how to write a sentence and complete their thoughts on paper. The students will learn the basics of sentence structure and add more to their pages and create a book. Lessons will be more advanced with independent work focused on descriptive words and writing. 
      I will explicitly teach and model how writers plan their writing by touching each page and think about what they would like to draw and write on paper.  I will also teach that letters make up words and words make up sentences. This class is very hands-on and students will have the opportunity to practice writing many sentences.  The students will work productively during class and generate topics, plan across pages, and record their thoughts on paper. The goal is to teach phonetics to sounding out words and for the last part of the writing process they will write a sentence. 
      The students will continue to write personal narratives and will tell their stories across pages. They will record their words on lines and write a sentence.  Their illustrations are also an important part of their writing because it enhances the stories of their lives.  The students will confidently write a few books and share them with their classmates.