Good Work Takes Time

Tomorrow we'll start a new chapter of the school year.

One first goal will be the completion of students' personal narrative stories.  The project has many learning goals including the following:

• Writing a story that includes a beginning, middle and end.
• Utilizing writer's craft to "paint a picture" and "make a movie" in the reader's mind.
• Editing and revising the story until it sounds "just right."
• Creating a story book with text, illustrations and Google Presentation.
• Enrichment Level: Creating a digital story book using iMovie and YouTube.
• Sharing the story with our chosen audience, the third graders.

This project will take time as all good work takes time.  This project also offers endless possibility and limitless avenues of creativity.  As with all projects I promote in my classroom, I completed the project myself.  I outlined my initial work in a previous post, and today I updated the movie and text utilizing the suggestions students offered during our class edit.  Is my copy perfect? No. There's still lots of room for further edits, revision, correction and detail, but for now it is "good enough" as with all creative endeavor, there comes a time to stop and move on. For me the moving on will be the intense coaching that accompanies a project like this, and perhaps I'll have the motivation and energy to revisit my story again and maybe again as I move towards a final polished piece.

Good work takes time, and that will be one theme as I coach students towards an optimal final copy of their personal narrative story.

Sandy Pond Surprise Digital Story by MsDevlin Exemplar