Students help edit their partner's "How to" book
Students shared their first attempt at a "How to" book. This type of writing is a huge shift from where we have been for the past five months. This writing is giving directions to a reader on "how to" do something. There are not characters, setting and dialogue. We will be using our partners more frequently to help us edit our steps and make sure we have words for a reader to be able to do whatever it is that we are teaching them. This writing is much easier to use and understand peer feedback, as most of the time students are skipping steps, pictures are not supporting the steps or the writing is not easy to read. This type of peer coaching allows students of all ability levels to be confident and push their partner to make their how to book more precise and clear to the reader. Some topics include: how to walk a dog, how to feed a dog, how to make pizza, how to sleep, how to make cereal, how to ride a horse, how to make a snowman and many more.
Our current understanding of "how to" books:
- they teach readers to how to do something
- they do not have characters in them (typically you do not see the words: I, me, we or names)
- they have step by step directions
- they have pictures that match the steps to help with reader understanding
- the steps are numbered
This week we will be adding a few new steps in our thinking to help refine the process and make it easier for students to plan their writing and be successful in including all necessary steps for their readers.
- being an expert on the topic makes writing how to do something easier
- making a plan for items you need can help make sure you include all necessary steps
- steps often take more than one sentence to clearly explain how to do
- label and arrows help clarify items in pictures
- warnings and tips are fun to add after all steps are complete to give your writing a touch of you
