We all know even the best writers have a plan before they start writing. I have always found this part of writing tricky to teach as everyone has their own style. Hence I initially left it off my website. But with practise and determination things come to fruition and I have added to my site a Prewriting page.
Teachers have different styles for different age groups. Some encourage students to draw a picture and add words that turn into a sentence. Some want 4 boxes with Who, What, Where/When, Why/How described in them. I personally make notes and add to them as time goes on, often rewriting to ensure I can still read the plan (it was for writing a novel or two).
Talking with a colleague, they mentioned the students I had last year had great ideas. But sometimes forgot to include them, so they were making a storyboard plan using 6 boxes.
I have Year 3 and 4 class this year and wondered could they do a storyboard. I couldn't see why not they love to draw, anything to thwart writing.
We were planning our writing using a single picture which just wasn't the same for inspiring ideas. They would write one or two sentences and often thought they were done.
We divided the page into 4 the children had to draw before, 2 images showing during the event and an after. These images allowed the students to think past one image, and they started writing more. It was exciting to see.
Currently, we are writing Explanations - how to make /do /create...
So we started with a picture of what we need to use and a drawing of what it hopefully looks like at the end.
We are getting multiple sentences out of them without it looking too much like instructions.
