Writing with Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch

Tomorrow is one of the big testing days for Florida's 4th graders: FCAT Writes.  At my school, we've come to grips with the fact that the majority of this year's 4th graders struggle with Writing. Along with Oral Language weaknesses, they have not mastered the basic mechanics of writing. Many of us have been pulling a lot of rabbits out of our hats!  I've had some success using color-coded highlighting (capital letters in yellow, punctuation in green, etc.).

To reinforce corrections of the most common errors, I created these two posters featuring Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch.  I know that Sesame Street is a little young for 4th grade...but it's an attention-getter, and those are "safe" characters that they know (I'm not a fan of smart-mouthed Spongebob).  The Oscar the Grouch poster says, "This Garbage Makes Me Grouchy!" The Cookie Monster poster says, "This Makes Me Hungry For More!"

Well, it has gotten their attention...and some of the students have fixed their errors while telling me, "Oh yeah, that's on Oscar's list."  So, you might want to give it a whirl with your students.  Just pinpoint the most common errors your group makes, use Google images for the pictures, and write some basic examples.

(Sorry the light is reflecting off of the lamination!)

Sweetly,
Jill