Learning with Ms. Manganello

During the next few weeks we are learning about Personal Narratives.  Personal narratives focus on the setting or experience of a character.  There is no problem/solution in this type of story.  To make up for the lack of story problem, the author uses vivid, descriptive language to hold the reader’s attention.  This powerful language allows the reader to experience the story through the five senses of the main character.  We are reading picture books each day and discussing the aspects that make it a personal narrative.  We are looking for “feelings” and the author’s use of descriptive words that highlight the five senses.  Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox and Owl Moon by Jane Yolen are good examples of this type of story.  Ask your librarian for stories that are personal narratives.  The children will complete the winter writing prompt on January 21st.  It will be a persoanl narrative.

The children did a great job writing a paragraph entitled, “If I were Rudolph…”.  They enjoyed making their Rudolph from a brown paper bag to accopany their piece.  The display in our hallway has been enjoyed by all!

We have been learning about writing paragraphs.  The children have learned that a paragraph begins with an ident.  You must start your paragraph with a topic sentence.  A topic sentence tells us about the category/subject of the paragraph.  Three to four detail sentences should support your topic sentence.  An interesting way to end your paragraph is by using a zinger.  The zinger sentence restates the topic sentence.