Helen creates Thomas Edison

Ellie Researched Betsy Ross

Andre & Iraj work on Alexander Graham Bell & JFK

Will Designs Barack Obama while Zachary Designs Abraham Lincoln, and Soma Puts a Spacesuit on Neil Armstrong!

Making the Clothing Just Right!

Thomas Cuts Theodore Roosevelt's Clothing

Lauren Works on George Washington

The 2nd graders spent a month on a very extensive non-fiction writing piece.  Each child chose a person to research.  The purpose of the research was to create a biography, including the following parts:  Title Page, Dedication Page, Table of Contents, an Introduction, an Early Childhood Chapter, an Adulthood Chapter, a Conclusion and a Glossary.

We tried to use at least 2 book sources and one on-line website source.  We read A LOT about our person!  The students learned to take notes (trying to take notes on the main ideas and not just the details), then we recorded our notes in our journals in a phrase form.  We arranged our notes in a proper sequence, and then we rewrote the notes into sentences in a 1st draft (we weren't allowed to copy text from any source).  Then we conferenced with peers and teachers to rewrite our sentences in a 2nd draft.  Finally, we edited our pieces...we checked for capitals, punctuation and spelling errors.  The final biographies will be revealed at our Poetry Cafe!  I am so proud of how hard the kids worked!  They were able to read their reports to some 4th grade friends, and the 4th graders couldn't believe that the reports were written by 2nd Graders!!!