Celebrating Success with Peers

As we come to the end of our writing unit, we have the perfect opportunity to celebrate our success! We have been spending weeks writing opinion and persuasive essays, and have finally come to the end of the unit. The students have put in so much time and effort creating and perfecting their pieces and learning how to persuade others to believe their claim. We have constructed strong thesis statements, created introductions to get our readers engaged, found viable evidence and support for our claim, and designed endings that wrap up our writing and give suggestions to our readers. Many students have taken such pride in their work and spent a lot of time researching and adding facts that support their claim.

I have had the chance to see tremendous growth in every single student throughout this unit! It is incredibly important to me that the students not only share those successes with me, but also with their peers. At the end of each unit we have the opportunity to share our writing with classmates and other grade level peers. The students proudly walk around the room and share their pieces with other students. It is a time for them to express their ideas to a peer and receive feedback for their hard work. It is the perfect opportunity to get positive, timely, and encouraging feedback from peers. During this time I love to observe both the positive verbal language and body language among my students.  I heard comments such as, "Wow! Your reasons are really creative!" and "You did a great job convincing me of your opinion!" Comments such as these make me proud of the environment we have created inside the classroom.

Celebrating success is important in a child's education. They deserve to be honored and recognized for their accomplishments. A lot of times the students' successes are celebrated by the teacher, but peer involvement is just as crucial. The writing program gives us the perfect opportunity to celebrate success with our peers. The class loves the opportunity to share their hard work and get feedback from their classmates.

Here are some of the students sharing their pieces with classmates!

Here is a finished piece from one of my students:

PEOPLE SHOULD LOVE SCHOOL

Do you think school is boring? Well it’s not, it’s actually fun because you learn and go outside, and play games. I know learning sounds boring but it can actually be fun. For example Math can be fun because sometimes you get to play a game. People should love school because you learn how to make something or do something, you get to play games, and most importantly you get to go outside.

         People should love school because you learn how to make something or do something. For example, you can make a cube out of paper. Also you can make a drawing. Another example is you can make craft. One time I made a cube. In addition, you can also do a paint project in art class or you can learn how to be a better reader or learn how to read. You never know what you can learn in school.

       Another reason people should love school is because you can play games. For example, you can line up from shoe size from shortest to biggest shoes. Another example is you can play Fan-n-pick. It’s a game where you get flashcards that have question on them. Person number 1 fans the card but the cards have to be faced down, person 2 picks the card and reads it, person 3 answers the question that person 2 read, then person 4 will praise. These are some games that you can play but there are much more games.

       Most importantly, people should love school because you get to go outside. For example, you sometimes go outside when you have to do an activity outside. Another example is you go outside because you did something to earn the privilege to go outside. Also you can go outside after lunch. One time we went outside for a game called “Inside outside circle”, it’s a fun game.  Also one time we went to play outside for fun. That's why recess is good because you should get your energy out!

          People should love school because you learn how to do something or make something, you get to play games,and most importantly you get to go outside.You should stick to school because you learn a lot and you will have a better job when you grow up.