I am in the process of teaching my First graders to write an opinion piece. Our District is requiring the students to write an opinion piece about their favorite character in a book. It is also a Common Core standard for first graders. As I have mentioned before in my Blog I have a class with about 80% second language learners, so writing in English is not the easiest thing for them. They are barely learning to speak English let alone write in English.
This opinion writing is very challenging. Most 6 years olds will say, I like her because she's pretty, I like him because he's cool.
So I have been trying to draw other reasons out of my boys and girls. It has been taking me about a week to go through my own process and teach them a meaningful way to do this writing.
Day 1 and 2: Read a story with a good strong character: Example: Curious George (any of his stories work). Make some kind of thinking map, Ex: Circle Map which in the center says: I like Curious George because........... Then brainstorm ideas or reasons why the boys and girls like him in the story.
Day 3: I use this Communication Guide. I write it on chart paper and laminate. The boys and girls use it along with our circle map. As a group we use sticky notes and complete the blanks together. We do this a few times. First I do it and then I have a couple of students do it in front of the whole class and then we read it together. (using my comminication guide I do teach my students to put the title in the middle of their paper and then to indent 2-3 finger spaces to start their writing.)
__________________
(Title)
My favorite character in ______________________________
( Name of book)
is _______________________. First
(character)
I like (him or her) because _____________________________________.
Then, I like (him or her) because _______________________________________.
(Choose one of the closing and write it here)
Closings:
1. _________________________ is a great character.
2. __________________________ is my favorite character.
3. I enjoyed reading about ___________________________________.
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Completed example:
Curious George
My favorite character in Curious George Goes to a Costume Party is Curious George. First, I like him because he dresses up like a cowboy. Then, I like him because he scares the people at the party when is a ghost. Curious George is a great character.
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Day 4: We complete the above Communication Guide again whole class a few more times and then we Think-Pair-Share what we plan to write with our partners.
Day 5: We write using the above guides. I do leave everything up for all our practice writings. By the time the actual writing assessments comes they have pretty well memorized this way of writing their Opinion Piece. Students that can handle it can extend their writing if they wish.
**When the Assessment comes I do take down all the scaffolding charts.
Well best of luck and if anyone has some more ideas on Opinion Writing I'd love to hear from you.
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