4 Reasons Why You Should Start the Year with an Illustration Unit

Ready to start having your students create high quality pictures and become confident writers? My Illustration Unit will be a GAME CHANGER in your classroom. Here's why:

1. Drawing is the first step in the writing process

If we are telling students to first draw their picture, but they don’t KNOW how to draw what they’re thinking of—what do they end up doing? Either sitting there with a blank paper the entire time OR waving their hand in the air throughout the entire writers' workshop. We have to model HOW to draw. Once we explicitly explain how to draw with shapes ONLY, students are much more able to independently draw their stories and ideas.

2. Creates confidence

When you explicitly model HOW to draw simple things like a person, house, car, etc. students are now able to transfer that in their own independent writing. These are simple things that students always are writing about in kindergarten. Your students will go straight into the first step of the writing process with CONFIDENCE because you laid the foundational step.

3. Sets students up for success ALL year long

You have to go slow before you go fast. It may seem like a lot to spend a month on just drawing pictures, but I promise you come October you will be SO happy you did. Your students will be drawing detailed characters with different facial expression, hairstyles and additional objects in their stories.

4. Quality work

 Part of the illustration unit is focusing on coloring. Thinking about colors that make sense (if you are writing a true story), drawing in pencil then coloring, and filling in the entire background. If you set this expectation at the beginning of the year, students will continue producing quality drawings all year long. And if they have very detailed pictures, they will always have more ideas of what they can add on writing about in their stories.

Did you know: I wrote complete set of mentor texts that guide your students from scribbles to full sentences—developmentally appropriate, creative, and actually fun to teach with.

Not quite ready for these writing units? My Scribbling Unit is perfect preschool and beginning of Kindergarten!