1st Grade Crew // Author’s Chair Share

Writing time in first grade is serious business. Not only are we learning basic grammar, practicing spelling patterns, writing in different styles, expanding our expedition mastery, we become published authors! There are many steps along the way to publish our work, like editing, revising, conferencing, giving and receiving feedback, but one of the most important parts is the continual opportunity to share our work.

In most of our writing, each week represents one of the stages of writing: brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing! During each stage, students are given the opportunity to share their work with the crew. Not only does this give students incentive to do their best work throughout the entire process, but it also provides opportunities for the students to authentically learn from each other. One of the most important aspects of teaching writing is having high-quality examples to show the crew.

We as teachers could spend hours making lots of examples to show students, but why do that when there is usually a goldmine of high-quality examples right in the four walls of the classroom? When students share their work with the crew (which is oftentimes a confidence booster for our writers), the sharer receives feedback on their writing, and they all learn what good writing is by pulling out criteria of what makes the writing high-quality as they move forward through the writing process!