Agents of Discovery Become Published Authors

The jump from second to third grade is one of the biggest in a student’s academic journey. It’s when children transition from learning to read and begin reading to learn. It’s also when their writing starts to jump off the page and grip readers with narratives full of rich, compelling details.

At Friends Academy’s Lower School, it’s no wonder then why the doors to the third-grade classrooms are adorned with the same sign: Agents of Discovery!

On Monday afternoon, the inquisitive agents invited their parents into school to celebrate the completion of their first writing unit. 

“The parents will see all of the materials when they get sent home, but it’s a special feeling having them in the space where the magic happened,” says third grade teacher Mrs. Nikita Desai. “We really want to celebrate and honor the students’ writing.”

Students were asked to write about small but significant moments in their lives — a joy they experienced, an obstacle they overcame — and explore the experience in great detail: What happened? Who was there? What was the setting? The sights? The smells? The sounds? The tastes? The feelings?

Students not only shared their published works with parents, but also a portfolio that displayed the process from brainstorming ideas to reviewing grammar notes in various drafts. 

“Third grade is about learning the mechanics of writing and the different genres,” says third grade teacher Mrs. Maria Hoyle. “We broke this personal narrative down into different steps and then talked a lot about the story arc. We studied similes and metaphors, figurative language. We started a little bit of dialog, and they tried to implement things like sound effects that were modeled in mentor texts.”

The students took inspiration from books (reading to learn!) such as Hello Ocean, Owl Moon, Roller Coaster and Fire Flies to help them find their own voices and narrative threads.

“Engaging with those mentor texts serves as a great entry point for inquiry and exploration. It makes them agents of discovery who are able to consider how they want to put their own thoughts into words,” Mrs. Desai says. “This unit really allows us to get a peek into the students’ lives and their personalities really shine through in their writing.”

The third grade writing curriculum opens with personal narratives, Mrs. Desai says, “to bring learning close to the student.” For this unit, students often wrote about being surprised, for example, by seeing stingrays, opening a present, or witnessing an erupting geyser. 

“In this space, in this school, you need to be who you are,” she adds. “And we tell students that they need to be who they are when they’re writing too. The inner parts of themselves are really starting to come out now. Their personalities shine through in their writing styles and they’re learning to take ownership of their stories.”


Photos by Alvin Caal / Friends Academy