Student Success and Bumping Up Student Writing

I wanted to share a piece of writing that one of my students completed today about Rainbow Looms that in all honesty..for a grade 2, blew me away!  At the beginning of the year, this student used to ask me how many sentences he had to complete for writing.  I am really excited because he is using the writing forms taught in class in an authentic way in his blog posts.  Looking at the attached post…I have proof that writing for a purpose and with an intended audience where a student knows that people will be reading his/her work and will be receiving comments truly does motivate and engage some of our students.

http://edublog.amdsb.ca/myblogcolew/

I am also using these posts for providing descriptive feedback to students.  My comment to this student celebrates his success and builds on this student’s individual writing goals.  I am also finding that this direct feedback is very helpful to the students.  I also find it interesting that they are wanting to share the same types of feedback to their peers (e.g., I overheard a student tell another student last week that they should reread their posts before they publish to make sure all the words make sense)…what amazing conversation pieces!