What's Your Story?

We are well underway in our writer's workshop.  Students are learning how to condense their stories down to tell about a "small moment."  We often like to write about our entire day, giving little details along the way.  I am teaching the students how to zoom into one moment and add all the details of that moment into their writing.  I call these "seed" stories.  We discussed the idea of "watermelon" vs. "seed" stories."  "Watermelon" stories are those large stories that need to be broken down.  For example, I could tell you "all about first grade" or I could write about "playing with my friends."  These stories are quite large and can be broken down into "seed" stories.  "Seed" stories tell about one particular part of our whole "watermelon."  For example, instead of writing about first grade, I could pull out one particular "seed" and write about "the time we walked to the Multipurpose room to take our school pictures.  This way I can specifically zoom in on one moment and write about the beginning, middle, and end of that moment.  I decided to teach this analogy to story writing that I'd bring in an actual watermelon and let the students see the difference between the watermelon and the seed.  Below are pictures of our fun watermelon exploration.

Can you see my "seed?"

Here's my "seed" story....