| John Collins Writing Program This year your child will be doing a lot of writing in class. We will be writing stories about ourselves and about the many new things we are learning in all subject areas. Most of your child's writing will be kept in their classroom writing folder rather than being sent home. We keep their work here to review the progress they have made and to build a collection of work to be bound as their Third Grade Book at the end of the year. A special feature of Type Three and Type Four Writing is focus correction areas. On these types of writing, your child will be focusing on three specific key aspects of writing. Focus Correcting is based upon the belief that students writing improves more quickly when the student works on a few writing skills at a time.The focus correction skills we are focusing on are directly linked to our writing and grammar benchmarks. You will be able to identify what skills we are working on because they will be written on the top of the page. The Five Types of Writing are defined below: Type One: Capture Ideas. Students will be asked to create a brainstorming document which has no correct answer, and which represents a free flow of thoughts and ideas. Type One is timed and requires a minimum number of lines. One draft involved. Type Two: Respond Correctly. In this case, students will be asked to create something which makes a point, and has the correct answer or content.One draft is involved. Type Three: Edit for FCA's. This is writing that is read outloud and reviewed by the author who then asks three critical questions: Does it complete the assignment? Is it easy to read? Does it meet the Focus Correction Areas? Type Four: Peer Edit for FCA's. The student's writing meets type three criteria, but must additionally be read outloud and critiqued by another. Type Five: Publish. This includes material that is clearly publishable, that can go outside the classroom without any explanation. |