We are working on instructional or “how-to” writing this month.  We began by identifying transition words and phrases such as at the beginning, next, then, and finally, along with ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.) We talked about how these words make it easier to understand the order of steps to take when we are following directions.  The students were challenged to use these clues to put some mixed-up instructions back in order.

Today, we practiced giving clear instructions.  I told the class that I had brought in the ingredients for a turkey and cheese sandwich with mustard, but that I needed some help from them to make my sandwich.  First, I asked the students to give me step by step instructions for sandwich making.  I wrote down what they said, and then followed their instructions exactly:

As you can see, our first draft didn’t work out exactly as planned.  We went back through, following the writing process we’ve been practicing, to edit and revise our instructions in order to make them clearer.  This is how our instructions looked next:

The students pointed out that, at this point, our writing was looking pretty messy.  We reminded ourselves that sometimes we need to go through some messiness before we can clean it up!

Finally, I tried making the sandwich again, following the new instructions.  It worked!  I had a delicious looking turkey and cheese sandwich all ready for my lunch.  Since we were happy with the final result of our writing, we were ready to create our final draft.

Next, students will practice using transition words to write about something they know how to do well before we do our final how-to project.