Adding details and description to our writing

Last month, the students did some small moment writing - that is, taking a small moment in your life, and using a lot of detail and description to show just how interesting these moments often are. We revisted this writing today, and talked about how much better we could make it, by adding more details and more description. Both times, the students wrote about what had happened that day at lunch. Here is one student's first attempt, from a few weeks ago:

At lunch I went to Big Brothers Big Sisters. After lunch we went to the gym to play games.

Here is what the same student wrote today (in the same amount of time that they had been given in the previous attempt), after we had our big discussion about adding more details and more description:

At lunch I went to Big Brothers Big Sisters. I had a tuna sandwich, a granola bar, a orange juice. It was awesome. After lunch I went to the gym to play for ten minutes. Now let me tell you about at lunch recess. Most of my classmates and my mentor Devin were playing tag and a race. What would you play?

This was from a student that I would consider to be a somewhat reluctant writer. The difference between the two is remarkable - the second attempt is so much better, in terms of drawing the reader in. I am so proud of this student (and all the others who were able to improve their writing after our discussion)! For me, it is moments like this that make teaching one of the best jobs in the world!