Examples+of+Writing

**__ Cognitive Examples __**

// Playful by nature, Lucy often jumps into the middle of a task before carefully thinking through all of the details. She has strong analytical skills; however, she thinks most clearly when she can brainstorm and blurt ideas out loud as she thinks. For those that do not know her, this can make her seem impulsive. //

// While Jake has much background knowledge to offer, it is difficult for him to organize and express his thoughts in a large group discussion. He often raises his hand, but when called upon he appears to freeze and forgets what he wanted to say. We have been working on giving more wait time so children like Jake can gather their thoughts and synthesize an answer- this seems to have really started to help.Organizing his thoughts for a written piece is a challenge for Jake. He often gets frustrated and wants to give up, when encouraged to write them down as they come to him and then sort through them he is more successful. //

**__ Aesthetic Examples __**

// Brandon often impresses me with his creative problem-solving. Given a creative assignment, he always has an idea immediately and works through any problems with ease. His delightful sense of humor always comes through in his work. While completing a paper cutting engineering project, Brandon quickly sketched out several different ideas and then continued to infuse them together. This showed his strengths in creative work when given the opportunity to create a piece based on any topic he wanted. //

**__ Physical Examples __**

// While Jamie has a solid understanding of rhythmic reading as evidenced by stepping and clapping various rhythms, she has had slight difficulty translating the rhythms while playing drums. Also, her melodic reading while singing is strong, yet holding the recorder and playing seems uncomfortable for her. She is very comfortable with her skills independently of the instruments. //

**__ Social/Emotional Examples __**

// During November and December, Lily participated in our Novel Study by reading __ Shiloh __ and then discussing her reading with a group reading the same novel. She was very interested in this activity and engaged herself in the discussions. I observed Lily moving around a lot during these discussions to allow herself to feel fully engaged. I included a picture below to give you a visual of her group interaction. When she did verbally comment, it was meaningful. I see Lily participating the most in group work when she is interested in the topic and feels she has meaningful information to contribute. //

// Callie is one happy little girl who arrives at school each day greeting us with a smile! She is confident and enthusiastic. She scans the classroom for her friends and immediately begins socializing. She initiates play and much prefers a group of friends to playing alone. One of Callie's strength is her leadership ability. She is very responsible and being the leader or helper brings out the best in her. When given the opportunity to lead a group she does so with ease and takes on the role of peace keeper in the situation. //

**__ Self Knowledge (Meta-Cognitive) Examples __**

// Liam wrote a piece in his writing journal about Dad's day. His piece was incredibly insightful and reflective on his feelings during the time spent with his father. When asked to share his piece with the class he asked to have it back to do some "fix ups" before he read it to his class. This showed his thoughtfulness towards making sure his best work was put out for his classmates to see. When I asked him about how he felt about reading his piece to the class he shared with me " I liked that everyone listened to me about something that I was really proud of". //

// In Josh's first blog post, he wrote about finding his passion. Josh's writing shows sophisticated understanding of his own abilities as an athlete and his shortcomings as well. This piece was published in Trinity's quarterly magazine, Inside Trinity. Although Josh is a humble child, he was thrilled to see his work in a publication that is distributed to the entire community. After the publication, Josh seemed to take extra care on the remainder of his blog posts...this experience was a motivating one for Josh. A copy of his blog post is below. //