Making Informational Writing FUN

My students love reading non fiction text and during DEAR time I’m finding that more and more often I’m seeing kids reach for my non fiction box of books.  Some will read about snakes, others about ponies….but when it comes to Informational/ Expository writing well…that’s another thing altogether.  I’m finding that often they seem a bit more reluctant.  They have become proficient at writing narratives and recounting events from their own lives.  So, I thought ~ How can I make this more engaging and fun and well cutesy?!?

Rather than having them write a report on lined paper and be done with it, I had them create a craftivity.  They researched the puffins on their chrome books { they love doing that } and filled in graphic organizers.  They were required to cite their sources – so they had to read 2 articles, one close read, research on the internet and cite these on the bottom of their papers.  They enjoyed using a white colored pencil to create their diagrams against the black construction paper too… { it’s the little things }  This sweetie is creating her craftivity.  This process took an entire week during our writing block.

My students worked so hard and I am so proud of them.  They created amazing expository writing with wonderful topic sentences and conclusions.  They also LOVED creating the craft to go with it.  We learned and reinforced all the important non fiction text features as we worked…it was a WIN ~ WIN and even my most reluctant writers were successful!