Informational Writing

This week my students have shifted their writing from narrative to informational/Explanatory writing. They have been LOVING this change. We have been learning about polar bears and they were so excited to show off their knowledge in their writing. To get them started I made an informative writing anchor chart and used the image of a hand to help them with the structure of an informational writing piece. We hold up our hands and review the structure during our writers workshop time before we begin writing.

After my students understood the informational structure, we used our knowledge gained from our polar bear unit to create a Have, Can, Are anchor chart. This chart assisted the class in creating their polar bear informational writing piece. 

After the students finished their writing pieces, we shared them in partnerships and gave compliments and suggestions. Right now we are working on giving helpful feedback and avoiding the "I like your writing" comments. Some students grasped this idea very well and gave wonderful suggestions to others about word choice, punctuation, and addition of sentences.  After editing, we will publish the writing and present it on our bulletin board accompanied by our polar bear art! Here is the art project we are working on right now.

We have really enjoyed our polar bear unit and our informational writing has started out very well! More to come! If you are interested in the polar bear unit, check it out here. The art project is a part of the unit, but if you are interested in just the art project, you can get it separately here.

Happy teaching!