This week in the #MSELib, the 3rd graders came to the library to work with Leads. They are learning about writing personal narratives, and any good personal narrative starts with a great lead.
I talked to kids about how a great lead will guide or lead the reader into your memory. Writers want the reader to feel like they are there with you. In order to make this happen, a great lead has to have lots of descriptive details, action words, and word choice that paints a picture in the reader’s mind.
We used a couple of example leads that the students had been reading and working with in Writer’s Workshop, then I wrote 4 additional leads as well.
I created these Writing Journal Response inserts for the kids to put in their Writing Journals. Then, I made lots of copies of all of the Example Leads and cut them down to size. I modeled how to respond as a reader and how to respond as a writer with one of the example leads, and then I read the other leads so the kids would know which ones they wanted to pick.
The kids then chose 3 of the leads they liked the best. They responded to each with a Reader’s lens and then with a Writer’s lens. After this activity, the kids did more exploration of leads with their teachers and then they had the chance to revise their own leads using what they learned from the example leads.
