It's a Fine (Time)Line

walkin' the line, Suzanne

First off- thanks to all of you who participated in our stakeholder survey.  I loved getting to see a glimpse of curly classrooms are all over the nation and world.  Your "highs" brought a smile to my face and your "lows" made my heart heavy.  We are so thankful for you and are in this together to help our students succeed!

Now, let's get down to business...
There is nothing worse than being put on the spot!  Even simple questions can leave my brain cells dazed and confused.  Our students feel the same way when presented with a writing prompt.  To soothe their fears, have students create a level of comfort with some of their most special stories and show them how they can be adapted to meet the demands of a variety of prompts.

One way to do this is with a handy dandy timeline.  Have students create a timeline of their lives.  Starting as far back as they remember, have them place a dot and briefly describe significant highs and lows.  This will be pre-writing that they can return to time and time again and should be added to their interactive notebook. 

Allowing students to share their timelines with small groups might help struggling students add more to their map.

After reading through the prompt, have students go back and look at their timeline, identifying an event that they could write about in response to the prompt.