Starting the Year in Writer's Workshop

There are three genres of writing that we are mandated to study in first grade:  narrative (stories), expository (factual), and persuasive.  We are starting the year by delving deep into story writing.  We are in the process of writing stories with a beginning, middle, ending, problem and resolution.  We are looking at punctuation and deciding which kind to use at the end of a sentence.  Some of us can read our writing and think about how we could change it so it makes better sense.   Others can add detail to our drawings and writing to help make our story more interesting or clearer.  

The book that we are using to help us think of writing ideas is Ralph Tells A Story by Abby Hanlon.  The book was written by a first grade teacher and suggests that there is a story in all of us; we just need to pay attention to find it.