Hello Families,

This week has been packed full of reinforcing our school culture and learning new routines that we will be doing for the rest of the year! However, we finally had time today to get to our class and independent writing time. I may have mentioned before that we will be focusing on 3 types of writing this year in second grade:

• Narrative Writing (tells a story)
• Expository Writing (explains something)
• Persuasive Writing (tries to convince reader that writer’s opinion is correct)

Today, I modeled writing a story about a time when I found a dog (true story!) using my Topic Sentence Starters and Closing Sentence Starters (found in your child’s Take Home Binder). Remember, this is the format we will be using to write in our class this year:

1. GREEN – GO! Topic Sentence (Grabs the reader’s attention and tells the main idea.)
2. YELLOW – SLOW DOWN! Big Idea (Give a reason or a fact. Use a transition word.)
3. RED – STOP! Detail (Give a detail or an example that supports your big idea.)
4. YELLOW – SLOW DOWN! Big Idea (Give a reason or a fact. Use a transition word.)
5. RED – STOP! Detail (Give a detail or an example that supports your big idea.)
6. GREEN – GO BACK! Closing Sentence (Go back and remind the reader of your topic.)

As students advance beyond the 6-sentence paragraph, I would like them to focus first on adding more “reds” or more details. Below is the helpful video that we watched in class today. I will also link additional helpful videos below.

Is your child a “reluctant writer”? The following article explains how the Step Up to Writing “Traffic Light Paragraph” model is simple for students to visualize and use to construct a solid paragraph. While the article explains how to write a 4-sentence paragraph, we will be writing at least 6 sentences for our paragraphs in second grade: “Step Up To Writing: A Tool For The Reluctant Writer”