Introduction to Procedural Writing

Last week, we read the story 'Bone Button Borscht', which is a version of the famous 'Stone Soup' story. As a class, we talked about what the story was trying to teach the reader, which was how we often have more than we think we do, when it comes to being asked to help others. However, we also talked about how the story is basically a recipe to make borscht, and this was the perfect kick-off to our unit on procedural writing, as a recipe is essentially a procedure. Procedural writing is where the author makes a list of ingredients/supplies, and then lists the steps (in order) that the reader would need to complete the task. The goal is for all of the students to eventually write up a procedure for something that they are an expert in. Before we get to that, however, we'll be doing a number of activities in class, first where I model what procedural writing looks like, followed by the class working together to write some procedures. Yesterday and today, I showed the students how to write a procedure, by picking something I'm an 'expert' in (racing in a triathlon), and creating a list of supplies and the steps needed to successfully compete in a race. Below are a couple of photos of our learning together - stay tuned to see what we're up to next...