Waverly Intermediate School

4th Grade

Miss Barada
Mr. Bogner
Mrs. Hruska
Mrs. Masters
Mrs. Sears

karly.barada@district145.org
brent.bogner@district145.org
teresa.hruska@district145.org
kelly.masters@district145.org
christine.sears@district145.org

Dear Families,
We want to take this opportunity to tell you about writing time
in our classroom. If you looked into our classrooms, youll
notice that we set aside time every day for writing. We refer to
our writing time as writing workshop because thats a term
published authors use. It makes sense to borrow their term
because the children will follow a writing process used by published
authors of novels, poems, short stories, essays, and articles.
In our classroom, the writing workshop begins with a 10-20 minute writing
lesson (which we call a mini-lesson) in which we explicitly teach the skills of good
writing. All of the writers will gather together for a large group direct instruction,
and we will teach them a strategy that they can use to make their writing
stronger, clearer, and more correct. After the mini-lesson, the children will work
on their own writing for 40-45 minutes. As your child works, we will be
conferencing with individuals. After the students work on their writing, we
gather them again for a teaching share time. This gives me an opportunity for
further instruction and gives children an opportunity to show each other what
theyve accomplished.
Throughout the next few of months, your children will be writing personal
narratives, which are true stories from their lives. Theyll also learn a variety of
strategies to draw upon during each stage of the writing process. Over time, it
will be very important that children develop better and better habits, so that it
becomes second nature for them to punctuate, paragraph and to spell highfrequency words correctly.
Please encourage your child by helping them realize that daily life is full of
stories that deserve to be told. When your family hears a noise behind the wall
and you use a flashlight to find that the noise comes from a squirrel, who has
been living there, remind your child that this would make a great entry in his or
her writers notebook! We cannot wait to hear their stories, learn more about
your child, and for them to grow as an incredible writer.
Sincerely,
The Fourth Grade Teachers
14621 Heywood PO Box 426 Waverly, NE 68462
Phone: 402-786-5340 Fax : 402-786-3385