DJohnston

Craft Lessons:Teaching Writing K-8: Grade 3 and 4- Pages 65 - 77

Using a Parallel Story: Page 65

There are many books that have been written that have parallel stories, such as Stellaluna, The Paperboy, and Slower Than the Rest. This lesson is a challenging one and would be appropriate for students with some good basic writing skills. They would also have to have a good sense of another person's perspective. The idea is to develop two main characters or two sets of characters (i.e. 2 families) and write different plots that are related but not the same, and culminating in a joint ending.

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Modified on February 24, 2006 at 7:28 AM

Craft Lessons: Pages 45 - 73 for Grades 3 and 4

Two lessons that immediately struck me as relevant to my class are "Cracking Open" General Words (pg. 50) and Using Stronger Verbs (pg. 51). Both lessons focus on vocabulary development, leading students to more precise/specific language. Students are ecouraged to "crack open" a general word such as fun by using a more specific word or phrase: instead of, "I had fun at my uncle's house," a student could write, "I had a blast riding dirtbikes at my uncle's house." Students in my class are not allowed to use happy, sad, glad, mad, bad, good, small, or big. An activity that might be creative and would engage students is to have them write as many synonyms for a general word and put them into plastic Easter eggs and then share them with a partner or small group with each student "cracking open" a word to find new synonyms.

The second lesson "Using Stronger Verbs" focuses on improving writing by using more specific and varied synonyms for verbs instead of just adding adjectives. I like what the author said about how nouns make the picture, but verbs make the pictures move. The lesson also encourages students to use active verbs instead of passive verbs. We read one of the Georgia Award books called How the FishermanTricked the Genie and came up with at least 21 words to use in place of "said." We often encourage students to add adjectives and perhaps adverbs to enhance writing, but I had not thought of focusing on verbs.

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Modified on February 15, 2006 at 9:14 AM

Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8

Pages 1- 13

Overall the book is user friendly and the activities are easily employable. The section regarding "responses" on pages 8 and 9 was especially pertinent for me as a teacher. Responding first as a reader to students' writing helps understand the content, meaning, and emotional force. Being positive and remarking more on the things students do right at the beginning of the year will help pave the way for more critical analysis as the year goes on. The students will have confidence in themselves as writers and be more open to applying new features. Trying to understand the writer's intention requires listening. By listening intently, one will be able to teach new skills within a framework of understanding and mutual respect. The best part of this section invites one to "lower expectations." Aahhh! However, as I reread this a couple of times, it made  sense to focus on a select number of skills until proficiency or mastery and then add on new skills. What a relief! I dreaded grading students' writing because I was tackling too much at once. See you next time.