Lakota Literacy View-New Learning

For me, teaching writing to kindergartners is the most unsure time of my day.  I have pretty high expectations of my kids for everything else but during that time I didn't really know what to expect.  The most consistent advice I've gotten is "if they get words and pictures on a page you are doing great" or "pictures and words matching is a huge deal".  I always felt like my kids could do more but didn't really know where to begin. 

Then last year I attended the Lakota Literacy View and met Ann Marie Corgill.  She talked about using mentor texts and letting the kids have full creative power.  I set up a writing area a lot like the one Ann Marie had in her classroom.  I think that my kids writing this year was better. They wrote different kinds of things but it still where I wanted it.

This past week at Lakota I took sessions with Matt Glover.  I hadn't heard of him but after a little research I found out he believe that kids can write a book on the first day of school...a book!  I thought he was crazy but he quickly convinced that this is the expectation I should have for my students.  Much of what Matt teaches go along with Ann Marie so I feel like I can seamlessly raise the bar next year.

So here it is...on August 24, the first day of kindergarten, my students will write a book.  This is big for me but I think it will make me the kind of writing teacher I've wanted to be.