Dear Friend: Please Read Me

We recently began the Lucy Calkins Units of Study in Opinion Writing where students began the unit by writing letters to classmates about their favorite books. 

In the first bend of this unit:

• the students drafted letters about their favorite characters in a book, and
• included opinions with reasons and evidence from the text that supports their opinions. 

The second bend emphasized that students

• write "long and strong," 
• examine pictures in their books to help them form an opinion, and
• retell parts of the story to help the reader understand their opinion.

The letter written and shared by the student in the video below is an example of the magnificent and powerful results we have been witnessing thus far. Just listen to this persuasive letter about the story Dogarella by Maribeth Boelts. We bet that you will want to read it, too!