The expectations of the 21st Century Standards of Writing require Kindergarten students to express an opinion through drawing, dictating, and writing. This may feel like a tall order, and you may wonder how to find the time in the day to begin to approach these expectations in meaningful, developmentally appropriate ways. With Empowering Writers, make the most of your time! Students will benefit from learning the language of opinion writing using curriculum that you have already planned in your classroom. Take advantage of current themes and units, such as this one using Santa's hat as a jumping off point for one of the opinion lessons in your K and 1st Grade Getting Ready to Write Guides. You will find these opinion lessons in Section 3: Informational/Expository, Research & Opinion.
Remember, verbal language precedes written. Discussions and modeling are critical precursors
to writing, so don’t feel pressured to have students put words on paper before they can be
expressed verbally. By using the opinion sentence starters as the jumping off point to express an opinion each time the opportunity arises, you are modeling how to structure these sentences before your students ever put pencil to paper.
Look at this cute lesson that is a favorite at our school!
How many of you are already making tally charts in your class? Now you can add this simple brushstroke to your lesson by having the students express why they voted the way they did using one of the opinion sentence starters provided in your guides.
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