Over the last week or two, I have been meeting with my kids to conference about their writing and coming up with a writing goal. I have always met with children about their writing, but this year is the first year I have met with them and come up with a goal for the month. This idea came from Katie at Creative Literacy. Well, the reason I am talking about this is because I met with one of my boys, Joe, the other week, and I was very impressed with his writing. He wrote a story called The Biggest Creature in the World. He based his story on the book I’m The Biggest Thing in The Ocean by Kevin Sherry that I had read as a read aloud. I asked him what made him think to make his own book based on this story. He explained to me that he just loved the story and wanted to make his own just like Kevin Sherry. He is also making a sequel to the book he wrote. His next book will be called The Biggest Creature in the Universe. I was so pleased with his thinking throughout this meeting. After we met, he was able to share with the rest of the class his thinking and his story. I believe some of the children will now begin to really start thinking about how authors are a great source to help them think of what they might want to write about during writing workshop. I will also use this idea as a jumping board to start having conversations about what books might help us during writing workshop. I really am looking forward to seeing what Joe will write and to see what some of my other children will be writing after they heard Joe’s story.
