Over the last few weeks, fifth graders have been collecting seed ideas and quick writes in their Writer’s Notebooks. Now that we have practiced becoming more fluid and reflective in our writing, through lots of stamina exercises and conferencing, we have begun really working through the writing process. From prewriting to drafting, editing to revising, we are preparing our written work for publishing and celebrating.

Each day, our students are coming in and moving their name magnet on our Writing Process Wheel. This helps us all see where everyone is in their work. We have learned about ARMS (add, remove, move, substitute) in our revision work – where we’ve been showing off our writing “muscles” – and CUPS (capitalization, usage, punctuation, spelling) in our personal and peer editing. We spent a day enjoying a classmate’s work and providing compliments, suggestions, corrections, and overall feedback. Our fifth graders are excited to finally publish their work and share with the entire class. It will be a wonderful way to conclude our kickoff unit, where every student has discovered that they are truly capable, creative, and resilient writers!