Journaling: Joe's first hit

While Writing Workshop started out great with my group of Kindergarten students, journaling was not particularly fun this past Friday.  My main problem when journaling has been my expectations about how I should be helping students who are just developing initial concepts of print.  Why did I lose momentum in Writing Workshop and become frustrated?   Honestly, I didn't stick with Lucy Caulkins' plan for using both pictures and words, like famous authors.  That was a mistake.  I can get back on track by introducing the lesson, writers write with both pictures and words.

Tomorrow, after explicitly making the connection that real authors write with both pictures and words "and you can too," instead of using the example of Courderoy, by Don Freeman, I'll display a page from Noisy Nora, by Rosemary Wells, as I've already been using it as an anchor text to teach rhyme. In the lesson, the teacher shows how some authors put the picture up top and put the words down below.  The Teacher asks, point to the picture, then point to the word.

Next, the teacher shows how Don Crews uses a different approach when writing:  he labels his pictures.  I discovered a link to the Harper Collins website that will allow me to display part of his award winning book on Freight trains on the SmartBoard. http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780688170875

Since we'll be journaling again tomorrow, I'm going to use an example of my own writing (seen above) as another example.  I'll put it up on the SmartBoard.  Tomorrow, I'll introduce the After Workshop Share.

Hopefully, I can get the Writing Workshop back on track.