4th Grade Humanities

Dear Families,

I would like to announce that we have begun our Realistic Fiction writing unit and also launched our Explorer Unit!  I will post rubrics, due dates and project guides soon to school loop.

I wanted to share with you some of the class goals that we have been working on.  When writing narrative stories the students need help with elaborating on a scene.  The example below is an excellent example of a student elaborating in their regular writer’s notebook entry. We use the language “summary,” versus “telling the story.”  Some teachers refer to elaboration as “zooming in on the moment,” or “show not tell.”  I am requesting, since we are learning it in school, that their writer’s notebook resembles more of the example below.  I am finding that pretty much all of their notebook entries are “diary like.”  They write a summary of the what happened to them instead of elaborating it.

Another big skill in writing is the ability to link ideas together using transitional phrases.

Here is an example of essay structure with clear paragraphs.

Here is an example of a reading response with clear paragraphs AND clear transitions.  Guidelines…

-don’t repeat the phrase

-think about the structure.  Are you adding on, comparing, or sharing an opposite view.  Each transition should be clearly chosen according to the author’s meaning and message.

(although, in addition, for example, ultimately, in conclusion, * conjunctions work to as a transition within a sentence.  so, but, for, and, yet, nor)