Rebekah's Voice Thread project

When I first saw that our Voice Thread workshop had to be for elementary students, I groaned because I don't' know a lot about teaching elementary kids. I have always taught high school, and other than having one child who has survived elementary school, I am pretty clueless. I quickly realized that I could translate my knowledge of persuasive writing to an elementary level. In high school English, we are always preparing our students for the graduation test in writing, but there is also a 5th grade writing test in Georgia. My Voice Thread focuses on brainstorming for a persuasive prompt from the 5th grade writing test which would be applicable for 4th and 5th grade students. Brainstorming results in a much better paper, but students don't always want to brainstorm because they think it is a waste of time. Getting the students interested in brainstorming and convinced that it will help goes a long way to helping them write a better essay. I think that Voice Thread is an engaging way to introduce brainstorming to elementary, as well as high school, students.