Writing Targets and Mysteries!

My kiddos have been working on fictional narratives for a little while!  Since we've been diligently developing round characters through actions, dialogue, and by carefully choosing character traits that can impact the characters positively and negatively, I decided it was time to work on dialogue tags.  Some of my little peanuts are a little heavy on the dialogue in general... which is the next thing I want to tackle.  For now, we just worked on replacing "said" with dialogue tags that will reveal something about our character's personalities or feelings so we can show and not tell.  

Last week, while reading Aisha Makes Work Easier, I pointed out how many different ways there were to say "said" that I found in the book. I had the kids work with a partner to search for as many examples as they could, and then we made this chart.  (The Writing Target and Peer Conference form are from my 19 pg. Writer's Workshop: Writing on Target kit.)

 

Since we ended up with our eighth snow day on Friday, I wanted to revisit the concept briefly before asking them to have a peer conference.  So, we went back to the chart and discussed how we noticed the different dialogue tags in Aisha Makes Work Easier.   I shared an example of another quote from a text before sending the kiddos off to find examples in our fabulous NEW books from Donors Choose!  They returned to their desks about ten minutes later, and they did a very brief (2 minute) pair-share.  Then, I explained that they would be taking green colored dots today during their peer conference to mark every place that their friends replaced "said" with more revealing dialogue tags.  I only gave them about twelve each, and I told them if they ran out of dots to use a green crayon to make green dots wherever they need to.  This is really helpful because some students realized that they used "said" a lot in their drafts.  Some realized that they left out dialogue entirely.  Conversely, some students realized that they may have a tad too much talking going on in their stories after their papers started to look like one big green blob.  :) 

Here's an example of some independent work...and you can tell that the student realized he was "on target" when he looked over his organizer.  Sure, I didn't ask him to do it, but he was thinking!

Here's a picture of a writing piece after a peer conference.  You can tell by looking at it, that I need to conference with this student about paragraphing next, but she is definitely on target for dialogue tags!

We also started our Super Sleuths: Mystery Unit today... unfortunately I didn't get too many pictures.  I also had a "bad handwriting day as you can see on my chart.  We started by reading The Mary Celeste.

Lastly, check out our snazzy new books!  I love Donors Choose!  I had two book grants funded... and another for Author Studies on the same day! I'm still waiting to get my Author Studies books and a few that are on back-order.  I am continually amazed by the generosity of citizen philanthropists! If you aren't signed up, you need to register for an account.  I don't get any money from PTO or our school, so for me, it has been a financial life-saver.  Love it.