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More Writing Strategies

Morning Message is another way to bring a writing mini-lesson into the classroom, especially in grades 2 and up. Teachers write the date and a note to the class each morning that tells about the day or talks about an important event, carefully leaving out a detail such as punctuation, capitals, correct grammar or spelling. Students are then asked to copy down the message and correct or 'edit' the text. A class discussion then follows to formally present or review the concept.

Many teachers have students start Writing Journals using composition notebooks. Each day the student copies the morning message into the Writing Journal with the corrections they see and then write their own morning message to the teacher. The student's morning message can be on any topic they choose to write, it may be about classroom problems, family, homework or other events in the curriculum. Each evening, or every few nights depending upon the teacher's schedule, the teacher quickly corrects the students writing and responds to each individual student. Teachers can keep careful track of the class progress and individual student's strengths and weaknesses.