Teaching Writing and Motivation!

Who wouldn't want to win the Celebrity Writer award?? Once a month I chose a new winner. The winner gets a trophy, their paper displayed on the special board, and a star next to their folder on the writing wall. Ooooh and they get to cut to the front of the line...which is a big deal! Ha! I choose the winner based on complete sentences, starting a sentence with a capital letter, punctuation, popcorn words, and a colorful detailed illustration. This award is so incredibly motivating!

Before we breakout into our independent writing everyday, we work together as authors and illustrators. This has been a wonderful activity to help model writing and illustrating. It's also great collaboration! We do this activity on the document camera. Different kids take turns writing each word in the sentence and then there are 2 illustrators per day. 

Afterwards, we display our sentences on our classroom door and label each one with the authors: Miss Powers' Class and the illustrators names. 

Once the kids start progressing in their writing, I will start working with them to assign each child their own writing goal. And then I will conference with a couple kids each day about their writing. :)