DJohnston

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.