“I wrote that the classes are so interesting that it makes people who hate school love school.”
4th Grade writers are crafting their first multi-paragraph essay! Using graphic organizers to demystify the structure, and their peers as collaborators, students spent the week drafting introductory and concluding paragraphs, and two supporting paragraphs that defend this thesis: Hillbrook is a great school because of the interesting classes and beautiful campus. In this project, they’re bringing together so much of what they have learned through their elementary years about the structures of writing—thesis, topic sentence, supporting details, paragraph models, and more. And though they started with the same thesis for this first essay, each student generated their own supporting details, examples, and introductory and closing paragraphs.
They shared tips with each other and their teacher, who modeled writing her own supporting details and examples for each paragraph based on student input. One offered, “I put, ‘In Hub you build whatever you like and grow your mind.’”
Another student said, “In PE you have fun but also build your muscles using dodgeball, basketball and swimming.”
I put, ‘In Hub you build whatever you like and grow your mind.’
Students also applied what they have already learned about making their writing more specific and expressive to hone early thoughts and to offer each other word changes: “What about exciting? Oh, or unique.” Finally, they practiced openness to feedback and other iterative facets of the writing process, offering partner feedback, changing some of their sentences to be more effective, and then moving to typing their first draft.
They’re excited to welcome families later this Spring for our Exhibition of Lower School learning and to show off their essays, along with their other great writing this year so far!