26 Days/Weeks in Our World Writing Project

Engagement: Teacher will show a beautiful photo from a vacation. Teacher will ask students what vivid details they see in the picture, where they think the picture was taken, and what feelings they get from the picture. Teacher will share a writing sample that describes the photo vividly. Teacher will ask students to share what vivid verbs the heard in the writing sample.

Lessons:

1. Teacher will discuss how to care for the camera, show features (zoom, power button, play back button, etc.) Teacher will allow each student to take a picture, look at it, and then erase it. Teacher will take class outside, and have them select areas they think could be used to describe the following adjectives: beautiful, scary, strange, peaceful, colorful, etc.) Rules about bringing the camera back to school each day, parental consent forms, and responsibility will be discussed with class.

2. Teacher will create a calendar for 26 days (or the number of people in your room including TA and Teacher) or 26 weeks (depending on time of year). Each student should be given one day/week to caprture a photo. Each student should get the camera on Monday and bring camera with photo ready on Thursday. Students will share photo on Friday.

3. Teacher will start the photo project and be assigned to week 1. Teacher should capture a photo that is interesting, but not a scenic photo. For instance, you might take a picture from a strange angle, or a close up of an insect. Teacher will conduct a lesson on the genre of descriptive writing and read paragraphs from books that show descriptive writing.

4. Teacher will share their photo on the first Friday and class will co-author a descriptive journal entry with the teacher. This will be used as their reference to what good descriptive writing sounds like.

5. Each student will get an oppotunity to take a photo and each Friday the students will write a descriptive journal entry about each new photo.

6. Teacher will compile a slideshow of photos using PowerPoint or other program and print the slides to add to a classbook of each student's journal entry about their photo.