Tomorrow's Writing Workshop

Tomorrow during writing workshop, the first graders will perform an "on-demand assessment" - they will write for 20-25 minutes with no teacher help.

We usually do something like this at the beginning of a writing unit so that we can see what our students know, and where they need to grow. (We usually call this kind of work a "show what you know" with the kids.) Then, at the end of a writing unit, the first graders perform another on-demand assessment - this time, we will be able to see how much our students learned.

Anyway, we wanted to give our first graders a heads up about the assignment tomorrow. If you get a moment, you can tell your child something like this:

"Tomorrow you are going to write all by yourself in writing workshop, so that you can show what you know about writing information books - writing nonfiction. Think of a topic that you've studied or that you know a lot about. You are going to write a book that teaches others interesting and important information and ideas about that topic."

You can help your child brainstorm topics by thinking about: places they go, things they know a lot about, things they do often, etc...

Thanks for your help!