Sprouting Authors

A student reads her "Small Moment" narrative.

Hockey, snowball fights, beloved pets, and even an annoying little brother were celebrated through personal narrative stories. Third graders in Mrs. Leslie Yach’s and Mrs. Deb Paulson’s classes shared their original stories with parents and friends at a Writers’ Celebration on Wednesday, February 6th, at Lake Spokane Elementary School. Through writing curriculum by Lucy Calkin’s, the students learned how to transform a small moment in their life into a well written narrative story.

A watermelon was used as an analogy for the writing process. Students were asked to think of an event. This event was their watermelon. From there, they were to take a slice of the event/watermelon; from this slice, they were to find a “seed” or small moment to write about. Mrs. Yach and Mrs. Paulson taught the students how to show, not tell, their audience about this moment. They were to use rich dialogue and interesting adjectives to “hook” their readers. The young writers learned how to stay on topic with their exact facts, while still making the story interesting.

One student showed these writing skills in her story titled, Basketball Day. “Swoosh! The ball went in the net like someone diving into a pool. My dad was proud. So at the end of the game he pronounced, ‘Good job!’ I said, ‘thank you,’ back to him. I was so glad that my dad made time for me.”

At the celebration, each student read his/her story aloud with expression. Each story was heartfelt with insight into the writer’s personality; some stories were extremely humorous, some extremely touching. From small seeds, these young writers grew wonderful, rich stories.