Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

Fourth graders write often during the school year in all subject areas for a variety of purposes. Students write to practice a skill, to explain their thinking, to take notes, to publish on their blog, or for their own purposes.

Several times each trimester, fourth grade students complete all of the steps of the writing process and are assessed on their progress in this process according to grade level expectations.  An example of this type of assignment might be a book review or a curriculum area assignment.

The typical steps of the writing process for students at this grade level are:

1. Prewriting – using a web, notes, list, sketch, organizer, etc. to plan writing
2. Drafting – using the prewriting to write paragraphs with main ideas and detail sentences
3. Revising – “big” changes such as changing sentences and paragraphs, reorganizing, rewriting
4. Editing – “little changes” such as punctuation, capitalization, spelling, run-on sentences
5. Publishing – piece is neatly written or typed and ready to share

The writing lesson on Voice that students recently completed is an example of the use of the writing process. Students chose their own topics for this assignment. A few of the topics chosen by 4K students were basketball, soccer, my dog, dancing, my cousin, and my trip to the Dells – all wonderful ideas for fourth graders who are writing with voice!

The trait of Voice, mentioned above, is one of the 6+1 traits of writing that students in the Whitefish Bay schools learn and use in Grades K-12. The 6 traits are voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, ideas, and organization, with the +1 as the final step of presentation and publishing.