Connecting Reading and Writing

As part of our kick-off to our new Writer's Workshop Unit "Small Moments," we did a great project during Reader's Workshop on Wednesday morning. In pairs, students read a book and together discussed where the small moment was in the story. Students then wrote or drew their interpretation of the small moment. After kids were finished we met on the rug and made a list of all of the different small moments that they had read about. The list included a thunderstorm, a summer day, waking up, playing on a playground, going on an errand at the store, getting a puppy, and going camping. I asked students to look at the list and tell me what they noticed. It didn't take long for kids to realize that all of the things on the list were events that happened to people. This provided me with a great way to explain what personal narrative, or small moment writing is. Notice the books on Shelfari to see which books we read!