Some of the third graders and all fourth and fifth grader
students entered the Pasta Tales essay-writing contest,
a national competition sponsored by Olive Garden. The
prompt was a challenging one: If you were given $5000
to further education in your local community, how would
you use it and why? Students had to grapple with issues
like deciding on a realistic idea, establishing a budget, and
laying out their thoughts clearly in a convincing essay of
only 250 words. Writing this essay capped a quarter of
doing mostly non-fiction writing for the fifth graders whose
Letters About Literature pieces were submitted earlier this
month. The younger students have recently written several
story-modeling pieces based on the books Curious George
and Parents in the Pigpen, Pigs in the Tub. All students also
prepared entries for the Zaner-Bloser national handwriting
competition. Class winners were Alex M, Farah S, and
Sahej B.
