Writing and Custodian

Our custodian at our elementary school has been very sick recently.  All teachers know how important a custodian is to a school.  I try to encourage my students to write notes and cards for others.  So, we wrote cards for him.  I wanted them to use Simple Six strategies when writing.  Simple Six is very similar to Six Traits.  Our kindergarten rubric has two parts.  In kindergarten, we grade the drawing and the writing.

I encouraged them to stick to the rubric.  Things were going very smooth until I broke out the markers!!  It is like they have never seen markers before!!  Whew!!

Below is a sample of a student's drawing.  She stuck to the topic.  It is recognizable.  The picture has details.  Therefore, this is a 3 on the drawing.  She completed her writing inside the construction paper.  I did not get a photo of it.

Below is a really good start to the writing.  He started with Mr. Mike, but it is supposed to read, "I love Mr. Mike."  When he was writing he put his name above instead of next to.  The next line reads, "I hope you get better."  He was still writing when I took the photo so his completed work was a 3 for the writing.  He stuck to the topic, had logical order and the story had details.  

Please remember as I am showing these pictures that this was a "spur of the moment", "teaching off the cuff" lesson.  A fellow teacher was visiting our custodian the following evening and I wanted to get these completed.  In a real prompt, our students would write with pencils.  I did not "grade" these; however, I reminded students of writing expectations.

This one cracks me up!!  This little girl just kept writing and when I saw it I said, "Christmas is over, but that's okay."  So, then I came back this is what the back said...

What do you use in your classroom to grade writing?  Do you use a rubric of any sort?  Again, this was "teaching off the cuff", but in any case, it put a smile on our custodian.

Endless Possibilities,

Stephanie


The frames above were purchased from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teaching-In-A-Small-Town.
The fonts used in the text boxes are Stephany's Super Cute Fonts.