Report Writing: Learning Around the Globe

I am so excited about this writing unit!  My students were so interested in researching how other kids around the world are learning.  They were able to compare and contrast their typical day with other students in other countries.  My students loved finding the country that they chose on our class world map!  This was a great way to integrate Social Studies!  The kiddos were so excited about what we learning that it was a refreshing experience!  

This is our Report Writing anchor chart that I used to guide us through the process.

I modeled an introduction for the students.  I used my Hooking the Reader activity to model an intriguing beginning.  Then, I showed the students all of my facts that I wrote down.  We worked together to sort them into categories for our body paragraphs.  I was able to use these to teach complete sentences, main idea statements, and conclusion sentences.  I really like this Scrambled Paragraphs Unit for extra instruction and practice with students that need the support.

After we glued our body paragraphs down, I modeled a conclusion paragraph.  Then, I gave my kiddos a transition word list to use as a resource in their journals while we added transition words to our rough draft.  Finally to make sure we were ready to publish, we used our report writing anchor chart to label our rough draft with all of our elements to make sure we were ready to publish.

This is a report about schools in Germany that my student typed after making her rough draft.  Being able to tyoe was a great motivator for my kiddos!  I showed them how to add pictures and captions which was awesome getting to tie in lessons on text features!

To get this writing unit with teacher modeling examples, go to 
Report Writing: Learning Around the Globe!

My students need more instruction on paraphrasing and quoting before our next research project.  I love these task cards from Teaching with a Mountain View.  
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting