We have been working on informational writing for the past few weeks. Mrs. Massey shared a lesson with us that helped us immensely! She said to visualize our paragraph as a hamburger. I know it sounds strange, but it really works. When you are making a hamburger, you always start with the bun. In writing, we start with a topic sentence. So in keeping with her analogy, our topic sentence is our bun.
The "meat" is our first major detail. The lettuce and tomato are details two and three. The you end with the other "bun" or closing sentence which restates your topic sentence. Mrs. Massey showed students how to add more to our paragraphs by adding in supporting details. She likened this to the mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup. Students were able to relate to this graphic organizer very well. Below are some videos of Writer's author chair sharing. Enjoy!
P.S. These video clips were taken with Gilbert's new Flip Cameras. What an awesome addition to the technology available for students! We have some great ideas for using them to share student learning! Thank you to the WACOPEP business partners who made their purchase possible! More to come soon!
