Writing Ordinary Moments in Extraordinary Ways

Last week in Writer's Workshop students learned how to write an ordinary event in an interesting way.  First they created a list of normal events that occur just about each day (playing at recess, riding on the school bus, getting ready in the morning, getting ready to go to sleep).  Next we reviewed the mentor text Come On, Rain!  to see how Karen Hesse was able to write a beautiful story about waiting for rain.  Some of the examples were: including dialogue, figurative language, and sensory images. Using plenty of reference materials in their writing resource section of their binder, students set off to turn some ordinary moments into extraordinary events.