Descriptive Writing from Drawings
~ Tanya Sharon

Ask children to draw a picture of something they'd like to write about. Give them lots of time. Then gather them together and ask a volunteer to post his/her picture on the easel (or somewhere where all the students can see it clearly). The "artist" then stands behind the whole class and the class tells what they see in the picture and what they think the story is about. Then the artist explains the picture. Finally, the class makes statements about what was good and what details would have made the story/picture clearer to the viewer.

When I taught first grade I had two or three artists present their pictures, then we had writing workshop with the assignment that they write the story of their picture and include details in their writing that would make it clearer to the reader. They could add these details to their picture as well.