Carrying on from last weeks writing lesson, I tried to bring in, as planned, a way of showing that you MUST carry on the same story that is there in the beginning.
I didn't however, reckon with P3, who seemed to be out to sabotage every lesson for most of this week! :( I think if I was actually wrong as many times as they tried to prove I was, I must be in the wrong job.
So, I started of with a story starter. We discussed it. What was happening, what did we think was going to happen next - what was most likely to happen next?
Then I read and displayed 3 different ways of continuing the story. One was obviously a continuation of the story that we had begun. The other two were obviously not. The talking partners discussed which one would be the best ending, according to the criteria we had talked about.
Most of P1 and 2 who were partnered together all came up with the same answer - the one with the obvious continuation of the story was the best. It also fulfilled our success criteria. But P3 chose another one - the one that they liked the best! And no matter how much I (and some other children!) pointed out how it didn't fit the criteria, and almost turned into another story entirely unrelated to the first, they refused to see it. (well, in my opinion, they refused to admit that they saw it!). Serves me right for including a holiday to the sun in one of the 'wrong' versions' - one of the P3 girls is just back from Bermuda and they are all obsessed with holidays at the moment!
Interestingly, none of P3, when they came to do their own writer's craft task afterwards, chose to write a story which changed the plot and ideas completely - they all continued the story reasonably well. (Seems like maybe they agreed with myself and the other children after all! - or at least learned that to achieve the success criteria, you have to stick to them, even if you don't like it!).
Using the success criteria is still having a very positive effect on their writing, although I'd say the pace of improvement has maybe slowed slightly after the initial burst. The writer's craft has proved much more tricky than the personal imaginative story - and that was harder than the functional writing from last term (although I really wished I'd been using formative assessment strategies for that - they did well as it was, I think this would have made them do even better!). Can't wait to use it in the summer term when we go back to functional and do a few more letters, instructions and posters!