On Tuesday, March 3 all fourth grade students in Union City will be taking California’s fourth grade writing test.  This test is a very small portion of the English Language Arts STAR test for fourth grade students.

All the fourth grade teachers at Pioneer have been working together closely this year on writing.  This week all our classes will be finishing up writing and publishing their Personal Essays.  We will then be working with Pioneer’s writing coach to plan and prepare students for this writing exam.

If you are interested in finding out more about this writing test and past examples, please click on this link to the California Department of Education.

These transition phrases can help connect your sentences and ideas together when you are writing.

Transition Phrases

• For example….
• One time…
• An example of this is…
• This is important because…
• The reason for this is…
• One reason…
• One way…
• One way this is true is…

Transition Phrases.pdf

During the past few weeks in Writing Workshop we have learned and practiced different ways of finding story ideas. Here is what we have learned so far:

Strategies for Generating Entries in our Writer’s Notebook

• Think of important people in your life and your stories with those people.
• Think of first times, last times and only times and the stories these moments show about your life.
• Think of places and events and the important stories that happen at these places.

An event is is considered a special occasion where people gather, such as a birthday party, wedding, anniversary, soccer game, baseball playoffs, field day, and so on.

Strategies Used to Generate Entries in Your Writing Notebook.pdf