2 Days into Opinion Writing

It has been two days of reading and talking about what opinions are and  how characters we know have opinions.  I have been trying to point out when we use opinions in the classroom and when I have an opinion about something.  Today, as we were voting about which play we enjoyed watching after another first grade in our building performed some fairy tale plays, one of my students shouted out, "We are telling our opinions!"  Yeah, I thought. This conversation about opinions is sticking.

So, the most natural thing happened after watching these plays.  I pulled out some larger (newer sized paper) pulled out the sharpies (for outlining their pictures and words) and let them write their thoughts about which fairy tale play they enjoyed.  With a quick conversation about how we could begin to tell Mrs. Wilkins' Class how we felt, we brainstormed some beginnings.  Then, I let them go to see what they could do.  All of their pieces are giving me ideas about what I need to teach next.  Some kids were excited to dive into this new genre while others wanted to finish writing they have in their folders.  About 1/2 were excited to share their opinions especially after they asked if we could share our writing with Mrs. Wilkins' performers.

I noticed that the kids who tried opinion writing were the risk takers today and have confidence for trying new things. The pieces that they attempted are pretty strong for a first try. I know that I can help build depth in their topic choices and details as our unit progresses for these kiddos.  I think the kids that tried today are also very auditory so talking and listening to each other then writing comes easier.  Some of my more visual learners will need the support of the mentors that come out of this first try at opinion writing as well as some other ideas that might interest them. They will also need the scaffold of shared/ interactive writing which I am sliding into my word study time. Today, we worked on a class letter in which we are writing our group opinion about our favorite play. Writing the beginning of this together was rich in conversation about everything: ideas for what to write, letter etiquette, accessing and adding high frequency words, punctuation, hearing then segmenting words and writing parts we are learning (hearing e sound in dear and identifying it as ea, cl as the blend in class, and the ed in loved).  But, the writing was lacking the discussion of the apostrophe used for ownership (whoops !). Save that for when we come back to this tomorrow.