No matter how great you think your writing lesson may be, there is always that small group of friends that struggle to get started during writing workshop. After using a question a day, your students will:

• develop a stronger classroom community.

• become independent writers.

• build confidence through their growth in writing.

Start your Day with Writing

Part of our morning routine is answering a different themed question each day.

Students write down their response in their morning journal. After some writing time, we use the question as a topic in our daily morning meeting.

Students appreciate getting to think about and plan their responses before sharing with the group.

This morning writing practice is not only beneficial for their writing, but it also helps to foster a classroom community.

Students love to have the opportunity to start their day with a voice and to hear the stories and ideas of their friends.

Morning Question Notebook

Students usually need about 15 minutes to answer the question and give justification.

When the 15-minute timer has ended, students bring their notebooks to a circle on the carpet to have a morning meeting.

Sometimes we have time for each student to share, or we also share in smaller groups.

Improvements in Writing

After a few months, students begin writing in greater detail. They are strongly influenced by getting to share their writing with their peers.

At the end of the year, the yellow notebook was an artifact of our year together. My students can look back and read their notebook to see their thoughts and feelings throughout the year.

Most importantly, they also were able to see how their writing progressed, which makes their confidence explode!

The goal for writing the question of the day is to transfer the skills of justification and writing in detail to writing workshop.

My students produced writing with more length and clarity. They had a stronger ability to organize and communicate their ideas onto paper. They also had a greater understanding of writing about true events that have happened to them.

With a question a day, students can improve their writing skills, while also building our classroom community.

• Use a question of the day to help students see their improvements throughout the school year.

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