Ms. Hartshorn

We used our historical walking tour of the village to write reports about how the town has changed. First graders drew three pictures that we call supporting details for the focus statement: The village of Moretown was very different many years ago. After the pictures were drawn, children wrote what the pictures were about. Some of these supporting details were: There was a big flood in 1927. Someone in a rowboat saved Mrs. Booth from her second story window. There used to be a blacksmith shop in town. There was a big hotel and dance hall next to the General Store. Moretown had at least three mills. The ladies loved the tea house so much that it was chained to a big tree so it wouldn’t float away during the flood of ’27.

Second graders are working on more parts of their reports. As a group, they helped me write the background/context as follows: Yesterday my class went on a walk through the village of Moretown to learn about the history of our town. We stopped at many of the buildings in town and learned about what they used to be and who used to live there. There are some very old buildings that are still standing in the village of Moretown. (Focus Statement) There have been many changes that have happened in the village of Moretown over the last 200 years.

Now second graders are working on individual topic sentences which connects to the focus statement before providing at least three supporting details for the focus statement/topic sentence. Some of the topic sentences chosen are:

In the flood of 1927 many things washed away.

There were some buildings that were there, but are not now.

The village I live in today is very different from the village in the olden days.

The town was busier than ever.

The child who wrote the first topic sentence wrote details only about things that were washed away during the flood. The child that wrote the second topic sentenced wrote details about what some of the buildings used to be used for, and/or who used to live in them. The child who wrote the last topic sentence wrote detailed sentences about the many different businesses and jobs that Moretown had to offer in the early 1900’s.

Second graders are also practicing how to write a "hook" which to start a report. Hooks can be a startling fact, a sound, dialogue, a quote, or a question. The hooks we are practicing have been dialogue, startling facts and sounds. A hook used by the child who wrote, "In the flood of 1927 many things washed away," began with Rumble, rumble, whooooosh! A startling fact for this one could have been, The water from the Mad River reached the second floor window on Mrs. Booth’s house!

Your children are learning the structure of writing. In order to learn the structure of a report, there is a procedure that it is followed and may seem a bit formulaic. They are using this specific structure to communicate what they are learning about local history—in words on paper—allowing the organize their thoughts and knowledge in a clear and detailed manner.