WOO HOO! We finished our first big writing project of the year - personal narratives and we had a great author celebration to celebrate all our great authors.
Our writing units are 6 weeks long and I use plans I found, since we don't have a writing series to follow. To make it makes much more sense to have a devoted time everyday and really dig deep in the writing process especailly in 4th grade. We do big pieces and I get some shorter pieces where they do the writing process independently to prepare for state testing later in the year.
Personal narratives went over so well!
I got some great model narratives: here.
Scholastic has some great organizers: here.
We made covers for our books on the Scribblitt website - FREE and easy to use! I just set up one account for class and had everyone on same login. It covered most stories otherwise they just had to draw their own picture, this was a fun alternative to spicing up their writing.
Portland Public Schools has some amazing resources and planning help : here.
We celebrated by having a "Special Invited Guest" attend our Publishing Party! I invited the principal to come listen to our stories. After I told my class, many thought it would be a famous author....maybe next time guys.
I had some red bulletin board paper cut up for our "red carpet" then I also added decoration to the board behind our chair and changed out the star for each student. The stars later made it to the red carpet.
Each students had a drink and snack at their seat and after an author read they got to choose 2 comments from the audience. We talked previously about how their comment had to refer to parts of a narrative and give an example of what the student wrote: "I liked the way you described your characters by saying..... I loved the interesting detail you added.... etc... Not just "I liked it." After they completed their story we would CHEERS to them and they would take their seat.
My class really took the whole celebration in stride and it made me extremely proud as a teacher of their work! They took such pride in it! :)
This pack comes with 10 creative ideas for author celebrations in your classroom and the materials to get them started. I'm already working on planning my next celebration!
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