December 9, 2022
Children at Riverbend are honored and empowered as writers. Three times each year, the Upper Elementary (UE) students invite their families for an Author’s Breakfast. This gives each child the opportunity to share their work with a wider audience. Because this is part of the rhythm of the UE experience, students work on their writing with great purpose.
As the event draws closer, children’s focus on improvement and excellence intensifies. They aim to make each sentence sound great because they know that they will have a large audience, and they are eager to make a lasting impression.
During this first trimester, fourth graders have been working on personal narratives, fifth graders have been working on an autobiography, and sixth graders have been working on memoirs. These projects have similar goals, but they honor the developmental stage of the student. By the time students have arrived at writing memoirs in 6th grade, they have had enough experience writing about life events, and they are ready to think about a deeper meaning that these events have.
The writing process the students go through mirrors the emotional and developmental stage they are experiencing, making it the just right writing task for the age.
Perhaps most importantly, we invite families to share in the joy and celebration of accomplishment. In our community families don’t only celebrate the accomplishments of their own children, but they also honor the growth that they see in the children around them. In our small, tight-knit community, families have the opportunity to see the growth of others over time; as audience members at the Author’s Breakfasts, they become partners in the learning journey for the whole class.
