Glaciers (Essay)

Glaciers by Ben
A glacier is a big, long stretch of ice that moves. Snowflakes recrystallize to form glaciers which can be big or small. Glaciers slowly spread down or out. Glaciers stop on land, ocean, or lakes. Glaciers form everywhere except Australia. Glaciers contain 75% of the earth's fresh water.

Working on the illustrations:

Ben's illustration of penguins on the Antarctic Ice Shelf (the world's biggest glacier):

And Nik's:

I really like the writing program we are using this year (Student Writing Intensive from the Institute for Excellence in Writing). First it starts by teaching you to outline. Then you learn to write from your notes. Once that has been mastered you learn techniques to embellish your writing. For example, Ben is working on who/which clauses, adverbs, and paying attention to words that are used more than once in a sentence or twice in a paragraph. If you look at the rough draft you can see the changes he made:

snowflake will recrystallize into Glaciers which can be big or small. Glaciers can spread down or out. Glaciers can stop on land, ocean, or lake. Glaciers form everywhere except Australia. Glaciers contain 75% fresh water.