Mrs. Russo's Grade One Class: Ralph Tells a Story

I read this book to the class last week and they LOVED it. They laughed and laughed and many of them identified with Ralph, the main character who for the life of him, could not come up with an idea for a story during writing time at school. He tried everything and nothing worked, until one day when the teacher called him up to share his story with the class. Ralph was terrified. He told the class about an inchworm he had found. His classmates hands shot up in the air, with question after question for Ralph. He realized he did have a story after all. From that day forward Ralph knew he was a writer. One of our favourite parts was reading the titles of all the stories Ralph ended up writing. We giggled and giggled. The class said they wished they could read Ralph's other stories in real life. What was it about the titles that made us want to read Ralph's stories? We discussed the importance of adding titles to our own stories, as a reader and a writer. I challenged them to add titles to to their stories that day and they didn't disappoint.

Book titles, by Ralph

We worked on these two anchor charts before settling into writing time. The class contributed their ideas to 'Staring with a Title' and I shared 'Writing Tips' with them. In the back of Ralph Tells a Story, there is a list of writing tips from Ralph. I added a few of my own tips before sending them off with a piece of chocolate (thanks Ralph) and their writing books! Here are some of their story titles...click on them to make them bigger!