I’m a big fan of the way Lucy Caulkins teaches writing, asking students to focus on elaborating on smaller moments rather than the traditional beginning, middle, and end stories.

For example, instead of:

I went to Raging Waters. We parked the car. I rode the slide. We went home. I watched TV.

Encourage students to write:

I climbed the stairs to The Deadly Slidewinder. I could smell the sunscreen on the large woman in a bathing suit in front of me. I heard the screams of other kids sliding down the slide and wanted to turn around. I didn’t. I climbed that scary slide. It felt smooth as I sat down. I didn’t think I would have the courage to slide but I did. And it was awesome.

If you have students, particularly first and second graders to write a beginning, middle, and end story you get a first grade version of War and Peace that’s too long to be manageable when it comes time to revise. Length gets mistaken for detailed quality. When you focus on smaller moments it’s easier to revise to add details and makes for more interesting writing. While structure will be come more important later, the structure of these short detailed narratives tends to flow organically from the material.

This from first grade teacher, Jenn Auld, who uses KidPix to integrate technology with her teaching of this method of writing small moments.

Find Lucy Caulkins at Amazon.