CWR

One learning activity we will be doing regularly is a CWR, or Constructed Written Response. It means students will be responding by writing a paragraph or an essay. Our first CWR was all about Main Idea and Details.

Ms. Leom slowly developed the steps. First, she encouraged students to come up with a Main Idea. Since she was SURE all her students love to clean and help out around the house (and her own children needed a clear "review" of the expectations), she picked cleaning the kitchen for her main idea, then wrote out the details. Students were encouraged to pick "something you know about". It could be a sport, a hobby, something you enjoy, or a job that you do.






Next, Ms. Leom shared with students the goal of the writing step and the details that needed to be included. The class started together: writing their names on their papers, recording the title of the assignment, then the title of the paragraph. Ms. Leom started with her main idea and changed it into a topic sentence. She gave students two examples they could use:
* This is how I clean the kitchen well.
* Cleaning the kitchen well is important.
Students could also choose their own main idea. She modeled how to indent and explained what it means to indent. When she ran out of room on the first line, she demonstrated how you start the second line to the far left. Students wrote their topic sentence, as Ms. Leom walked around and monitored student progress.

Then, she modeled writing detail sentences, changing details into sentences. The new sentence should start immediately after the previous period. She modeled on the board, and students had work time. Ms. Leom finished her example, then walked around and gave feedback.

the work used to model with Ms. Leom's Homeroom Students

 Before students could finish writing their detail sentences, Ms. Leom explained closure sentences. Beginning writers use "The End" to tell their story or paragraph is finished. As a fourth grader, students are expected to use closure sentences to clearly communicate, their writing is concluded.

Ms. Leom pointed out that her paragraph is like a stoplight (she had to use brown marker for the yellow, because the yellow marker doesn't show up for students to read). When we write paragraphs, the paragraph has three distinct parts: green for topic and introductory sentence, yellow for detail sentences, and red for the closure, ending sentence.

Again, students had work time. Ms. Leom walked around and helped individual students. She wasn't able to see ALL students, but was able to answer questions for students with questions and help those who needed help.

This is a CWR: Constructed Written Response. We will write a written response at the end of every major learning topic. There will be a prewriting and paragraph or essay step.

the work used to model with Mr. Greninger's homeroom students