The excitement of the holiday season is helping students at Athena Elementary work on their writing skills in December. The classrooms are working on informative writing, a type of non-fiction that aims to educate readers about a specific topic using facts, data, and objective explanations, rather than personal opinions or biases. Its primary goal is to teach, explain, or clarify a subject.
Kindergartners are working on writing their own books using facts about reindeer. Second graders are working on explaining different components of the holidays.
First, the students outline their ideas with a topic sentence, facts they want to share and transition words. A student in second grade recently wrote about Santa’s cookies and milk, how reindeer have antlers and fly Santa’s sleigh and how Christmas trees have lights and ornaments.
Principal Kerri Coffman said learning writing requires specific instruction, focus, time and practice. “The great thing is that the holidays are a very motivating topic for elementary students!”