We have been spending time each morning talking about the "focus" questions Wonderopolis.org uses to help guide their writing for each "wonder". A student noticed last week that the first "focus" question is always the "wonder" question of the day. The other two questions "focus" our attention to what we will be learning in the text. We've also spent time in class experimenting with writing our own "focus" questions and what good "focus" questions would be for other non-fiction texts we have read. We have also discovered, if you can't answer the "focus" questions, you probably were not paying attention.
In preparation for Valentine's Day tomorrow, we made a list of our own "wonders" about Valentine's Day, keeping in mind what we have learned about "focus" questions. Tomorrow I will be grouping students to do some research to answer our "wonders". Then as a class we will write our own non-fiction text about what we learned, using our "focus" questions as our guide for our writing like Wonderopolis does.
What a WONDERful idea!!!!
ReplyDelete