Seaford Students Get Their Facts, Write

SEAFORD, NY. — Seaford Manor Elementary School students got the chance to tell their classmates a thing or two this week, as the students completed fact-based nonfiction projects that informed their classmates on a topic that interested them.

The nonfiction “expert books” started with topic selection, prompting each student to select something they knew a lot about, on which they could write at least five chapters. While subject matter varied from sports or toys and several topics in between, the writing techniques were consistent throughout the class. Seaford Manor students used things like cause and effect and comparisons to get their points across, finishing up their work by serving as their own — printed in color — illustrators.

Another of the process in this unit was teaching students to be reporters, gathering information through a combination of interviews and research, writing stories about things that had happened in their school or their community. The students also learned to cover a beat by writing different stories on the same topic, fulfilling the classic “Five W’s” of journalism — who, what, where, when and why — with each assignment.

“Students explored topics of personal interest, conducting research to find out information that would be useful to their readers,” district representatives said. “Topics included fashion, holidays, movies, nutrition and sports. Some of the reporters even conducted polls or surveys to get feedback on the topics from classmates.”

Finally, fifth graders got hands-on experience designing a newspaper by adding pictures, illustrations and headlines to their stories on graphic design site Canva.