Second Grade Informational Report Writing

 

Happy Saturday, Friends!  I hope you are enjoying some nice weather wherever you may be.  I’m popping in to share about some informational reports my seconds have been writing.  We have worked on them for quite a while and we are finishing them up.  I must say that my students have enjoyed writing these reports.  They’ve put so much effort into them.  I am lovin’ how they turned out.  WARNING!!!  You may want to grab a snack, because this post is pretty long. Ha!

Here’s our writing process from start to finish….

I sent a note home to student’s parents requesting their help with the informational report.  I love involving parents in student learning.  Students are motivated to the work and it provides a fun learning experience.  In the letter, I told parents that we would be working on informational reports and I requested that they visit the local library and/or use the internet with their child to find information about a famous African-American, president, or woman in history.  By the way, the students chose the person they wanted to write about.  We had a variety including Laura Ingalls Wilder, Wilma Rudolph, and Abraham Lincoln.

 

After the resources were collected, the students completed a two-page graphic organizer about their person using the resources.The graphic organizers were completed as a part of student’s writing homework so that parents could be involved in the process.  This was our pre-writing phase and it helped the students to organize their writing.

When the graphic organizers were completed, students were all ready for rough drafts.  I always find that drafting is easier when students do a graphic organizer beforehand.  I won’t say that the drafting process was a piece of cake, but because students had already organized their writing it made life easier.

The fun part of this entire process had to be the editing, especially editing with a peer.  The students were responsible for self-editing first.  They used a red color pencil to edit their own writing.  We’ve talked about editing marks during mini lessons so students enjoyed using them when editing their work.  Then it was time for some peer editing with a blue colored pencil.  They also used a peer-editing checklist.  It was so cool to see the students giving quality feedback about writing.  Of course, this was modeled many times during our writing mini-lessons.  I must say they did a wonderful job with this. 

The final edit was by me.  I used a green colored pencil.  After two edits already, I didn’t have too much to do. 

By the way, while students were working independently on their writing, I would help them find pictures on the internet.  They created cute little posters to go with their reports.

After editing, final copies were written.  We are still working on this stage, but most students are finished.  Here’s a peek at some of the finished products.

Publishing is fun too.  This is where I give students an opportunity to share their writing with the class.  We had a few students share their work this week.  Look how proud they look!

 

Overall, this was a fun learning experience for me and my seconds.  It has taken quite awhile to get everything done, but boy was it worth it!  I am currently putting together a little informational report mini-pack for our TPT store with all the resources I used, including parent letter, graphic organizers, and editing tips. 

Thanks for sticking with me through this SUPER long post.  Do you do any informational report writing in your classroom?  I would love to hear about your process.