THE END: Helping Students Improve on the Oh-So-Typical One-Sentence Conclusion

[Gail Corthell]

 

 

This is my fourth year teaching fifth-grade and I am still searching for a way to help students write thoughtful, creative conclusions for their expository and narrative writing pieces. My fifth-graders have become quite adept at “grabbing” their readers with their introductions; they excel at including details, “show-me's” and figurative language in the bodies of their writing. After all of this, a reader should rightfully expect a satisfying conclusion, right? Wrong! My budding writers still think nothing of ending their writing with one-sentence conclusions. What's a teacher to do?

 

Consequently, I've decided to focus on presenting an inquiry-based demonstration to all of you. I'll be searching far-and-wide for any practices that will help students write conclusions that show their inner voice and leave their readers satisfied. I have a couple of ideas that have been moderately successful in my classroom so might add those to my demonstration; thus I hope to have combination Best Practice/Inquiry presentation for everyone.

 

I look forward to meeting all of you. (And if anyone wants to point me in a certain direction for my world-wide search, I'll welcome any help I can get!)

 

THE END