Another extension activity! This time I made the students think creatively and outside the box. Continue reading
Someone Else’s Shoes
writing strategy
The Boring Words Funeral
Today my 6th grade co-teachers and I held a Boring Words Funeral for the overused, boring, ‘2nd/3rd grade’ words in our vocabulary. This was a very somber event. Students and teachers wore black. We brainstormed a list of words that we would bury and no longer use for the remainder of the year. We wrote these words on note cards, placed them in burial shoe box, then lined up outside the door. Continue reading
ClassTools.Net – An Excellent Teacher Resource
Just last week, my co-teacher introduced me to ClassTools.Net, an excellent resource for teachers! This website has interactive diagrams, models, games, and activities for all ages! Continue reading
My Hamburger Narrative
The focus of my sixth grade classes is narrative writing: short stories about the student’s own lives. To help with the structure of writing a short story, we explained a hamburger model of writing–the buns are the topic and concluding sentences, the meat is the essential components of the story, and the condiments are the supporting details, evidence, and sensory details! Continue reading
Old Man and the Sea Outline
My Honors kids have been struggling with thesis statements. They have great ideas, they just aren’t articulating them into arguments. And thus their papers (and grades) are suffering. So I decided to do something a little different for their Old Man and the Sea papers. I wanted to help them out. Continue reading
Snapshot
Take a picture/photograph and write.
This strategy is related to Writing from Image [Ekphrastic]
Writing From Image [Ekphrastic]
The assignment: to focus on a specific object or image, and then concentrate on how to write about this image/picture in a descriptive way.
This strategy gets the students to start thinking about figurative language, symbols, similes, connections, etc. Continue reading
Research is Fun [Weird!]
In my opinion, teaching students to write in first person (about themselves, their life experiences, their reflections, etc.) is much easier than teaching students to write academically or write research papers. That is why I like this strategy: Research is Fun, because I think that finding new ways to teach research/professional writing is essential for engaging them in the classroom content. Continue reading
Frame-Up
‘Frame Up’ is a writing strategy that I love because I think that it is a great way to help students shape their academic essays. A huge problem students have with essay writing is that they aren’t sure how to begin. For the most part, students understand what a thesis statement is, they just don’t know how to actually write one or incorporate one into an introductory paragraph. Continue reading