I first had students write an acrostic poem when we did vocabulary. It needs to be a vocabulary word with five or more letters. (You know how kids might pick the shortest word to get done quickly. True... it happens.) The poem needs to be about the word chosen. Each phrase is about the vocab word and not just the general topic. I had a few students read their poems to the class.
Next, we worked on quick writes. I would give them a start and they'd write a paragraph. The sentence stem would be simple like: Can you believe that cells... or Did you know the nucleus can be compared to the principal's office because... I also have taught history so when studying Egypt, we learned about the Nile River and we the students wrote about it. Their sentence stem was simply: Wow, the Nile River... We took a few minutes for a handful of students to read their paragraphs. This also gives students ideas who are stuck.
I have some samples of student output in 6th grade science about cells. One the board I write: Explain the levels of organization in plant and animal cells from cell to organism. I got some great student output. I love the variety of ways students chose to show what they know.
I also have examples of student output from: What are the organelles in a cell? Name the structures and their functions.
I keep it simple. I have a stamp I had made at Vista Print and I stamp completed work. (Do you see the stamp on the pages above?) I then have students fill out a notebook points page themselves. I have this notebook points page as a freebie on TPT. I am the queen of efficient. I fill in the notebook page numbers and page titles in before I print them. The students just mark if they have a stamp. If they do have a stamp, they earn five points a page. I can get them in the gradebook before they leave class.
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