The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Last week I got an email from Waitsburg fifth grade teacher, Gabe Kiefel, explaining that his class had collaborated to write a pollution essay that they were very proud of and wanted to see if we could run it in The Times.

When I got the go-ahead from the big boss (aka Editor Ken Graham), Kiefel asked if I’d like to visit the class so they could explain their writing process to me. I did, and it was a lot of fun.

The students explained that they first watched a video on pollution and then worked together on an outline. One young writer commented that it took a lot of “arguing” (or c...