Making Oaks from Seeds (Writing Drafts)
This week, we discussed the idea of writing drafts. All writing begins as an idea, as a tiny seed that is ready to grow into a fully blooming story. As we think about that idea, we give that seed what it needs to start growing. Our tiny seed idea begins to sprout above the surface and turns into a rough draft. Just like a blade of grass peeks above the soil and is finished growing, some stories only become rough drafts and never go any further. Other stories get improved by adding details, by correcting spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, and by using stronger words. These stories grow into flowers as the writers turn a rough draft into a second draft. Most stories stop at second drafts, but they don't have to. Even huge oak trees begin as tiny seeds. These "tree" stories are stories that we put a lot of time and effort into. We write them several times, making them better and better, until we are ready to share our stories with the world - and we are proud of our work.
For most of our writing prompts so far, we have written "grass" stories that began and ended as rough drafts. Our personal narrative stories, however, will become oaks - amazing stories that we will be very proud of and that look much better than the tiny seed we started with in the beginning.
Ask your child about his personal narrative and have them share their work with you so that you can see (and help shape) this mighty oak!
