The Benefits of Themed Projects for English Learners

     I decided to do a Donors Choose project and got funded in August. My goal was to get leveled readers for the coral reef theme as well as supplies for doing illustrations.  My low readers drew and labeled coral reef animals. They also wrote a sentence initially about their chosen animals. After I did a lot of backfilling by read aloud books and animal cards, the kids added some sentences to the first one and created paragraphs. We had a lot of conversation about paragraphs as well as models on chart paper that included introductions and concluding sentences.

     My intermediate students actually did research online, took notes, and wrote multiple paragraphs. Teaching writing to kids is a patience-maker.  We went through all the steps including revising and editing with partners all the way to publishing.

     When we were going through all the steps there were days I wondered why I stuck my neck out to do it with all my students at the same time! However, when my principal's area director complimented my student's work to my principal, it was all worth it. The kids sharpened their skills, too. I am convinced that it will take multiple projects of this type for the steps to come naturally to these kids...if it ever does. It takes a lot of time to teach those steps and shortcuts just don't work. Here is the first shot of what my beginning readers did at the outset.