Craft Lessons (pp. 32-64)
Comments: 0
I cannot believe I am saying this, but the book may be too short! Fletcher and Portalupi give just enough to get one started teaching third and fourth graders tools like "cracking open general words", "heavy sentence" and "creating a dramatic scene". However, a little help from them is probably better than 300 pages from less practical writers. Actually, the one-page lessons would especially benefit teachers whose strength is in subjects other than the language arts. To those who already teach writing, the specific lessons would strengthen their skills, while making sure that there is a broad scope of writing skills. These lessons are definitely teachable, if one takes the class time to do it. My only question would be, "How can teachers squeeze time for this wonderful approach?" Craft Lessons is so far beyond Power Writing, that our students could really be creative and proficient authors if we did give writing this kind of focused attention. I'm thinking of practicing a few lessons myself.
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