Grades 3–5
30 Minutes
InformationalSparksStudents will reflect on their progress as writers by creating a roadmap of key writing milestones and through a visualization activity.
Students will create a roadmap that captures their writing milestones from the year.
This Spark is designed for students to reflect on their progress as writers over the course of a year, a semester, or a program term. For the full lesson, view Dear Future Writer on 826 Digital.
How to Begin
Start by introducing the idea that through all the writing they’ve done together, your students have grown in incredible ways as writers. Today, students will reflect on their journeys as writers this year. First, you will create a Writing Projects Roadmap that marks important milestones and projects from their year. Then, students will travel back in time, moving from the beginning of the year back to today, to remember key moments from their own personal writing journeys. This is a great place to share your own praise and observations from the year, too!
STEP 1: Writing Roadmap (10 minutes)
As a whole group, take a minute or two of think-time to reflect back on the year, and invite students to share writing activities that they remember. Jot these down somewhere where everyone can see. A visual representation of a timeline of the year can be useful here. Feel free to use the Writing Projects Roadmap attached to this lesson, or make something similar.
Now that you’ve jogged your collective memories of what writing you did this year, invite students to continue this memory journey — in a fun and imaginative way.
STEP 2: Intro to Time Traveling (5-10 minutes)
Start by asking students to imagine themselves on this path that you’ve just been remembering. As if they were a time traveler, they have the power to travel back to all their past experiences on this path.
In this activity, you’ll invite students to walk around the room, slowly and safely, to reflect on key moments they’ve experienced this year as writers. You might help them visualize the room as the path of their writers’ journey, for example: “If the room represents your journey as a writer this year, where would the starting point be?”
Here are a few tips for guiding students through this creative visualization:
STEP 3: Walking the Path (10 minutes)
Once students have mingled and mixed around a bit, invite them to stop and find a partner who they are standing near. Inform them that they’ve stopped at their favorite writing experience of the year.
Invite students to tell their partner what they imagine when they think about their favorite piece of writing they created this year. Invite students to share how it felt when they were writing this piece, a favorite memory from the project, or what they love about what they wrote. Have them switch roles so the other person shares.
Once everyone has shared, go back to mingling around the room until you say stop, and they find another partner. The second prompt (or time travelers’ pitstop, if you will) is to share something that inspires you to write like a song, your family, your culture, a book, a video game, a friend or other person. Encourage them to share why and/or how this person or thing inspires them.
And mingle one more time. The last prompt is to share a piece of advice for when you get stuck in your writing.
Other optional reflection prompts:
Writing Projects Roadmap — Handout
Download Resource PDF: Time Travelers: Your Writing Journey by author Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket
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