Testing, testing, ONE.TWO.THREE. Our fourth graders needed a little reminder of one of the first rules in writing detail sentences. NO 
GROCERY LISTS!! I just happened to walk into Mrs. Reynolds' class while she was teaching it and fell in love! Her lesson was exactly what the students needed and was a lot of fun! I wish I would have gotten my camera out and videoed her teaching it to share with you... next time:)
She started the lesson off with the PDF from her 4th grade Expository Guide. (Pg 254 for those of you that have it) After reading through the first paragraph, where the items in the garden are listed, the students immediately knew that it was a grocery list. Next, she split the class in to two parts. One half of them flowers and the other half vegetables. She then took the flowers in the garden- roses, sunflowers, and daffodils and assigned one to each child. It was so funny to hear them, especially the boys, when they were labeled a rose😂 She repeated the process with the vegetables- tomatoes, beans, corn, and carrots.
She then directed students to use the detail generating questions to rewrite the detail sentence for their flower or vegetable, using a chart like the one to the left.
After students were finished, she collected sentences for each flower and vegetable and rewrote the paragraph about what grows in the garden.To make it a little more fun in the classroom, she had the students from her three sections of fourth grade read the finished sentences and vote for the one that they liked best, without voting on their own! They placed their name and the reason why they chose it on a sticky note and stuck them to their favorite detail. It was such a great lesson and a great reminder of one of the most powerful tools we use when writing detail sentences!
Kylene
kreed@empoweringwriters.com
