We have been practicing persuasive techniques such as repetition, rhetorical questions, exaggeration, inclusive phrases and emotive words. We are learning to balance this language with factual evidence. We always try to give a point, reason, evidence or examples, then re-state our point (PREP).

Together, we wrote this memo to Ms O’Dwyer. We tried to make it really emotional and convincing.

And guess what? It worked! She has agreed to give us a 1-week homework holiday, on account of our excellent persuasive writing. Read our work below:

Cancel our Homework! Cancel our Stress!

Grade 4 students are terribly stressed. Every night we are trapped under a mountain of homework. We work hard all day and then at night we work like slaves to finish our homework. Is this how you want us to live?

We are certain that Grade 4 should not have homework because we have many other commitments. For example, most of us have at least 3 hours per night of academy homework. Others have extra homework given by our parents. On top of that, we still have chores to do, such as clearing the table, washing dishes and laundry. On other days, we have religious festivals and family celebrations. If visitors come to our house, we also have to help prepare food and play with their children. How are we expected to fit in our homework? It is impossible for us to manage all these commitments.

In addition, homework interrupts our sleep and causes stress. Imagine sitting at your desk night after night until after 9pm. Our parents won’t let us go to bed until all our work is done. This causes arguments, fights and stress in our lives. Experts say that children need at least 8 hours of sleep each night in order to concentrate and have enough energy for the next day. Don’t you want students who are sharp, alert and ready to learn? Homework only makes us more sleepy and stressed each day.

Finally, Grade 4 needs less homework and more free time. Everyone knows that children need time to play with friends, exercise and enjoy hobbies. This is essential for stress release, health and social skills. Do you want us to be narrow-minded students, who only know about spelling, grammar and times tables? Or do you want us to be balanced, caring people who have many interests and skills?

So, please don’t let homework ruin our lives. We trust that you want students who are well-rested and happy. Cancel the worksheets. Cancel the spelling list. Cancel the stress!

By Grade 4

Task Description:
This text was constructed jointly with the students and teacher. Each student brainstormed ideas and these were combined into 3 key reasons. Then, each student wrote individual paragraphs and conferenced with the teacher. Finally, the students combined their ideas and sentences into a class text. The focus was on teaching persuasive language techniques, such as rhetoric, repetition and exaggeration to convince an audience.

Stay tuned to read our environmental essays!

The first event was 100m dash. Everyone was getting nervous and finally the wistle blew. I sped around the corner and crossed the finish line. I was in two races and got 3rd place on the first run and 1st place on the second run! I was very very proud of myself.

The next event was long jump. Every competitor got a warm-up jump. When I warmed up, I thought about the positioning of the yellow line. Every school could have 2 kids in this event. BISS chose Joshua and me from Grade 4. After all the warm-ups, it was my turn to jump. I ran as fast as I could and jumped as far as I could. I got 1st place! I was very happy and I sprinted over to get my ribbon.

At long last, it was the race I had been waiting for. It was the relay. In my relay team were Kazuki, Geon Woo, Jack and me. However, Kazuki was badly injured so Syakir replaced him. First Syakir ran and gave the baton to Jack. Then Jack ran and passed it to Geon Woo. Geon Woo ran towards me and as I got the baton I was suddenly very nervous. I took off and ran as fast as I could. But we were losing. I tried my best and started to take over. In the end, I beat them! My team won the relay! We were celebrating with joy! I couldn’t believe it!

Overall, I was very proud of all my events. I feel like this was the best day of the year. I think I really improved in running and jumping because in one day, I ran 2 x 100m, 3 x 50m, plus a relay. I got a lot of exercise and had a lot of fun. The highlight was the exact moment that I crossed the finish line in the relay. It was the best day.

By Kota
Grade 4

What was your highlight from Sports Day?
How did you show sportsmanship?
Did you make any new friends?

From hundreds of entries, all over China, their stories were selected as the major prize winners.

1st Place – Sajid – for his story “Blaze Saves the World”.

2nd Place – Benedict – for his story “Aliens Adventure”.

Congratulations also to Chae Yeon in Grade 3 who received an Honorable Mention for her story “A Lucky Year”.

BISS writers dominated the 9 years of age category! We are very proud of our talented friends!

Read the winning stories below:

 

What is your favorite part of each story?
Which writing strategies do you recognise from our workshops?

– a different genre for each book

– books which matched our individual reading level

Each person read at least 3 chapter books in a 5-week period. After reading each book, we chose response tasks. We could choose to respond to plot, setting, character or theme.

Some people wrote letters to characters, re-wrote scenes in new settings, changed the ending of the story or blogged as if they were the author. Our responses showed deep understanding and great creativity.

If was wonderful to read a range of genres and be so independent in our learning!

Which was your favorite book?  Write a recommendation. Try to persuade other people in the class to read it.

Jacqueline Harvey is the author of the picture book, Sound of the Sea, the best-selling Alice-Miranda series and the new Clementine-Rose books. She has won Australian Book of the Year, YABBA and Koala awards. Her Alice-Miranda series includes 8 novels. (Learn more about Jacqueline Harvey here: http://jacquelineharvey.com.au/. And here:  http://jacquelineharvey.blogspot.com/)

Our class has been studying Alice-Miranda at School over many weeks, while investigating genre, plot, characterisation and writing techniques.

During a Skype interview, we asked many questions about where Jacqueline finds inspiration, how she makes a story engaging, the themes of the book and the publishing process. Jacqueline told us she writes 50,000 words per book and sometimes spends 10 hours writing each day. She explained how to start with an idea, and then bring a character to life.  She gave us advice about writing dialogue and using action to keep a story moving.

It was really great to talk to a famous author. Jacqueline was interested in our lives, too. She asked us questions about Chinese New Year and the weather in Beijing. She told us that she travels regularly to promote her books. We encouraged Jacqueline Harvey to set the next book in China. We would love to see Alice-Miranda on the Great Wall!

(You will see the full interview on our wikis in the coming weeks.)

What did you find most interesting or surprising in Jacqueline Harvey’s answers?

What did you learn about writing during the interview?

How will you use Jacqueline Harvey’s advice to improve your writing?

He was a very kind gentleman with lots of great ideas for creating stories. He gave us three scenarios for different genres. Our favorite scenario was about zombies, which we chose by voting. When we finished the story, we read it and thought, ‘This story’s genre should be thriller!’

Before we started writing, we planned our plot diagram with Mr. Crawford. We thought about the introduction, rising action, climax, resolution and conclusion. Planning is a very important step.

Then we wrote our story draft. The story was about Sajid (George) and his best friend, Benedict (Tim). Benedict became a zombie by accident. He drank a beaker that was full of unknown green liquid. And at the end, Sajid made “Undoing Zombie Medicine” and he sprayed it on Benedict. At last, Benedict went back to normal.

We made some revisions to our story and also proofread carefully for spelling, grammar and punctuation.

We all really love our story by Mr. Scott Crawford and us, the Grade 4 students. The workshop gave us many ideas for improving our writing. We learned about using dialogue, creating suspense and starting sentences with verbs. We aso had great discussions about genre, characters, plot and setting. Mr Crawford told us that it’s important to write what we know and keep some parts of the story realistic and believable. We learned that anybody and everybody can write stories and we should think about a variety of scenarios for each genre.

 
Writing Workshop with Mr Crawford on PhotoPeach
 

What did you learn about writing?

We became friends with every god on Mt Olympus and met blood-thirsty creatures, such as a gorgon, cyclop, harpie, cerberus and chimera. We enjoyed reading these myths through historical fictional novels, such as “It’s all Greek to Me”.

We made connections to many of the modern stories, movies and comics that still use characters and themes from Greek mythology.

We also enjoyed Greek myths through Readers’ Theatre. We practiced reading fluently, with vocal expression, facial expression, gesture and pacing. Each group performed a different myth, including Theseus & the Minotaur, King Midas and Medusa.

As a class, we also explored the vocabulary and themes of Pandora’s Box. We each played a part and shared our video at assembly.

Grade 4 presents Pandora’s Box!

Add comments about any modern books, movies or comics you know that contain characters or themes from Greek mythology. 

They have received Honorable Mentions in an Art & Writing Competition (judged by City Weekend Kids & Parents Magazine).

Their writing and drawings will be displayed at a hotel. They will also be invited to receive their awards at a public ceremony.

Congratulations on your creative success! We are very proud of you!

Have another look at their beautiful images of the future below:

Hyun Seo dreams of living in space.

Sang Won’s futuristic world.

See this previous post for more great writing & artwork from our class:

http://blogs.biss.com.cn/sodwyer/2012/10/23/describe-the-future-in-100-words/#more-446

While we research the lives of ancient people, we’ve also had fun imagining the lives of future generations.

Our creative writing prompt this week came from the City Kids & Parents Magazine.

What will the world be like in 100 years?

Here are a few of our 100-word descriptions:
100 Years in the Future

Now, let’s narrow our thinking to the next decade:

• What do you hope your life will be like in 10 years?
• What do you think the environment will be like in 10 years?
• What will you do to make the world a better place over the next decade?

Here are our class constructions:

We are now working on individual poems about ourselves and poems which contrast two different personalities.

Stay tuned to read more student writing!

UPDATE!

Here are two individual poems. Kota and Sajid read them aloud at assembly:

Blue

Blue looks like

A boring, rainy day

Juicy berries hanging from a bush

And my favorite baseball team 

Blue sounds like

Gentle, ocean music

Water dripping in the sink

And a ghost approaching

Blue feels like

Bright, sunny weather

The perfect day to paint a house

And an extra hour of playtime.

Blue tastes like

A cup of wobbly jello

A warm berry pie

And an icy cold glass of water. 

Blue

By Kota

If I If I Were In Charge of the World

If I Were In Charge of the World

I’d ban wars among all nations

I’d ban starvation among children

And I’m make every day a holiday.

If I were in charge of the world

There’d be giant swimming pools in every home

There’d be smaller soccer stadiums so more goals are scored

And better technology for all.

If I were in charge of the world

You wouldn’t find traffic, rubbish or pollution.

You wouldn’t find rules, bedtimes or homework.

You wouldn’t find any sadness or loneliness.

If I were in charge of the world.

By Sajid