Linda Susens is an inspiring first and second grade teacher that Creative Communication has been working with for years. We asked Linda to share her thoughts on what makes her teaching so successful in the classroom. We love what she had to share and are excited to share it with our readers.
“As far as I am concerned, the primary grades are the perfect place to introduce writing instruction. Students in kindergarten, grade one, and grade two are eager to express themselves through writing. They’re not inhibited to share their work, and they’ve not yet been biased by abbreviations like OMG and LOL.
In my first grade classroom, we write all day long! We begin the day—even the first day of school—with a writing activity. Until Christmas break, I write an incomplete sentence on the board. While I’m taking care of morning responsibilities, my students are completing and illustrating sentences like “A good friend is _____.” and “I like to play _____.” in their morning notebooks. The goals are to help students develop their thoughts and to craft complete sentences. After Christmas, the focus shifts to writing conventions and vocabulary development. I write a class story, a few sentences a day, using the students as the characters. The students need to find and correct spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. These notebooks provide parents and me with information about each student’s developing writing skills.
We write in math. Our math program devotes every fifth lesson to solving word problems. Each problem requires students to explain how they found their answers. In addition, I write word problems using the students’ names that also need written explanations. We solve these as a class, and I model how to write sentences to answer math problems. Students in first grade are just learning how to write sentences in math. I see my role as preparing them for problem solving in the higher grades.
We write in science. My students have science journals in which they log their predictions, experiments, and observations. All entries are required to be in sentences and fully illustrated.
We write in social studies. When studying Native Americans, the students use Native American symbols to write a picture story. They write the symbols on a piece of brown grocery bag, and then crumple it to look like “buffalo hide.” When learning about famous people, the students create family trees and timelines of their own lives. They make a photo autobiography and fill it with pictures and captions that demonstrate what is important to each of them. I provide a photo autobiography both as an example and because students love learning about a teacher’s personal life.
And, of course, we write in language arts. We begin by listening to beautiful writing. I often stop during read-alouds to comment, “Did you hear how beautiful that sounds? Listen again! Would you like to try that too?” And then we write like the authors we admire. I usually begin with poetry, because at the beginning of first grade, students do not have the endurance to write a long story. Poetry allows each student to be done when they fatigue.
When we begin writing stories, I use a funnel to introd
uce the concept of focus. One by one, each student tells his/her story idea. We place it on the funnel and work to narrow each topic as a class. Then, I teach each paragraph individually by selecting a different student each day to help me write on chart paper that will later be hung as a reference. The student dictates the first sentence. I ask clarifying questions and we write the sentence together. We repeat with the rest of the sentences in the paragraph. While this student copies his/her paragraph into a writing notebook, the rest of the students begin their own paragraphs. Over time, each student gets to write out loud with me and the entire class gets to benefit from seeing the various writing styles within the room. I type the finished pieces for each child as they dictate it to me. I use this time to edit one-on-one and compliment each author on his/her improvement.
We celebrate our writing. As each writing piece is completed, the authors read their work to the class and beam as they are applauded. We submit poems to competitions such as creativeCOMMUNICATION’S fall and spring poetry contests and celebrate those whose work is accepted for publication. At the end of the year, we bind all finished pieces into a single booklet, make copies for everyone, and invite families to an “authors’ tea” during which each child reads his/her favorite poem and essay.
In addition to fostering a love of writing, these activities have sometimes given students a new sense of self. I once had a special needs student who had two poems accepted for publication in one year. That summer, his grandmother took him along to a book signing. While the author autographed his grandmother’s book, the student asked “So, what do you do?” The author replied that he wrote and illustrated books. The student replied, “Oh, is that all? I’ve done that twice already and I’m only going into second grade!”’
Thank you Linda for the incredible work you do in your classroom! Your students are lucky to have you. Thank you for sharing with our readers what has helped you to find such great success with your students. We look forward to working with you for years to come.
