Miss Elker's kindergarten students are taking on an entirely new task today. They are making covers for their narrative writing. This is an exciting undertaking for sure! Miss Elker presents a mini-lesson using a variety of familiar picture books as mentor texts. She shows them to the students and they talk about the title selection and the other features of the book covers. There is so much to be learned, I find myself thinking, about just the cover of a book.
The biggest job is select a title for the writing. Miss Elker explains that the title of a story is not a big long sentence about the story, it is short, just a few carefully chosen words. Wow! This is tricky, I think to myself. Kindergarteners have had lots of mini-lessons on stretching out their stories by adding details. Trying to get kindergarteners to expand their writing bit-by-bit is a huge job. Now, here comes the title- breaking all the rules and asking just the opposite of them.
Next comes the really fun part of the cover . . . getting to write that special word BY followed by the student's own first and last name. This is huge! This is signing their work like a true author. Good thing they've been working so hard at learning to spell their last names in the month of January.
At the end of the writing workshop, when all of the new covers have been stapled to the top of the stories they belong to, Miss Elker's students meet on the risers to share their work with one another. There is much to be celebrated, and everyone hopes today is their day to have the spotlight!
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