Watch and Learn
Earlier in the week I spent some time walking through classrooms checking out the excellent instructional practices taking place within our school. I made my way to a third grade classroom where the teacher was leading a mini-lesson with her students in Writer's Workshop. They were focused on ways to improve their opinion pieces or persuasive essays, as they have been called in the past. Specifically, the students were told when they make a claim or state an opinion within their writing, they must be able to defend it with factual evidence. Typically, when I pop into classrooms, I spend about five minutes watching and visiting with students to get a feel of the learning taking place. However, I was drawn in and could not wait to hear what the student discussion was going to sound like and how this would impact their writing, so I hung around for an extended period of time. Image Credit: quickanddirtytips.com The students broke into groups and were instructed to share their op