Brainstorm Research Topics with Desktop Graffiti
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

Make paper tablecloths by placing butcher-block/bulletin board paper overtop clusters of student desks. Small groups look through magazines and cut out words, headlines, and photos that are on controversial, political, and social topics appropriate for an expository assignment. [read more...]

Fun Revision Strategy: "Story Surgery"
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Asking students to add details to their writing often causes frustration--for the students and for the teacher. They don't want to add more. And they feel like they can't because there's no more room on the paper. Aha! It's time to introduce story surgery. [read more...]

Pictorial Writing Counts!
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Picture writing provides opportunities for students to add details that will later grow into written sentences and paragraphs. If they draw more, they will have more to elaborate on in their writing. Teachers working with ELL and students with special needs at any grade level could teach pictorial writing, too. [read more...]

Gotcha! Getting Students to "Show, and Not Tell" Their Details
Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Trying to get students to describe a moment rather than just tell about it is difficult. We've all said things like "Show, don't tell" or "Paint a picture in my mind with your details" or "Make me feel like I was there." Despite all this instruction, students still tell their readers "The teacher was mad" rather than show [read more...]

Focus on Building Writers, Not Simply Illustrators
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

In order for your young writers to write with more details, more words, and more sentences, they need to spend more time writing and less time drawing. But getting seven-year-olds to put down their crayons can be difficult. Try one of these two approaches: [read more...]

Topic Choice Conundrum
Monday, December 6th, 2010

To choose or not to choose? It is a conundrum. If one reason you don't like free-choice writing is that students don't know what to write about, check out some suggestions for topic generation. Without the element of choice, the joy of writing, like the joy of reading, could suffer a terrible fate. [read more...]

Target Picture Writing to Improve Sentence Writing
Monday, October 25th, 2010

But don’t just tell students to draw with details, teach them how. There are several explicit lessons you could address within these first weeks of school. Take your time as you introduce these new concepts in lessons. Each idea might require more than a one-day mini-lesson. [read more...]

Target Close-up Details in Descriptive Writing
Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Collecting several postcards from Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, Topeka Elementary teacher Cathy Strawser displayed them within her classroom. Each postcard included plants and flowers. Some had statues, others depicted various seasons. [read more...]

ABC "Ideas" Bulletin Board
Monday, September 27th, 2010

Diana Arnold started an “ABC Ideas” hallway bulletin board with her first graders. They add to it weekly, brainstorming things first graders are knowledgeable about. After introducing her students to the alpha-boxes, Diana also modeled an ABC Chart all about herself. [read more...]

Twenty Ways to Develop an Idea
Thursday, January 7th, 2010

With state standardized tests scheduled for late February and early March, we need to plan accordingly for the final push to get students ready. Before the tests, we need to fine-tune students’ strategies for elaborating in their writing, to hone in on [read more...]

Go Ahead, Laugh Out Loud
Monday, January 4th, 2010

The goal of revision is to make the piece sound better, more clear, more thorough. Revision shouldn’t be about rewriting or recopying. Teach students ways to create space within a draft so they can add, change, and cut content without recopying a [read more...]

Spice Up Subject Area Writing
Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Not only will students have to utilize their content knowledge (and the vocabulary) to complete these writing assignments, they will be more “into it” because of the unique point of view it allows. In fact, several teachers have shared that their [read more...]

Create Personal Life Maps
Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Create character life maps on personal life experiences. Have students draw a life map plotting places, people, holidays, vacations, events, and milestones in their lives for as far back as they remember. Give students [read more...]

Writing Endings That Don't Merely Summarize
Monday, December 29th, 2008

The sign of a strong ending or conclusion is not necessarily one that fits a 3-5 sentence recipe. We've all read great endings that were one sentence long and great endings that were five sentences long. We've all read wretched endings that were one sentence long and wretched endings that were five [read more...]

Moving from Personal Narratives to Memoir Writing
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

At the secondary level, consider moving beyond traditional narrative writing and try memoir writing. This genre doesn’t cover an entire life, like writing an autobiography. And unlike a personal narrative, it goes beyond just retelling a [read more...]

Zoo Pals Paper Plates Target Detailed Writing
Monday, October 27th, 2008

First grade teacher Donna Marlatt (Perry Elementary in Selma, IN) developed a fun idea for encouraging students to utilize stronger word choice and more specific details in their writing. Using the popular Zoo Pals paper plates [read more...]

Fall Walk Sentences
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

The entire class spends time walking the school grounds, gathering inspiration, ideas, details, and words that describe the season of fall. Then, all students submit a single sentence by the pre-determined deadline to be judged by someone outside of the [read more...]

A Recipe for Action Verbs
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

While reading How to Eat Fried Worms, Sweetser Elementary teacher David Henry had his fourth graders make up recipes for their favorite dishes. In the first draft, they had to approximate the ingredient amounts and the cooking procedures. Then [read more...]

Maximizing the ABC Chart for Writing
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

The signature of a great teaching strategy is its flexibility. That's why I love the ABC Chart. Simple idea--multiple applications. Here are ways to utilize this same tool to improve writing skills with idea generation and pre-writing. [read more...]

Jumpstart a Research-Writing Unit
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

A second use for the nonfiction picture book is to help any student who can’t choose between multiple research topics. Have him read several nonfiction picture books in order to fine-tune his interest to one topic. This helps decrease the likelihood of him wasting a lot of time [read more...]

Preparing for Research Papers
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

For intermediate and secondary teachers, second semester curriculum often includes the “research paper unit.” With this comes the usual woes of teaching students how to organize note cards, paraphrase, and draft a strong thesis statement. Here are a couple tips that might help this [read more...]

Introducing a Writer's Notebook to 6-year-olds
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

So you want to incorporate a journal or writer's notebook into your primary classroom? Excellent. My guess is you have the same first two questions every other primary teacher wonders -- 1) Loose sheets of paper or bound notebook pages? 2) Lined paper or blank? [read more...]

Understanding the Difference Between Revision and Editing
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

There is a clear distinction between revising ideas and editing conventions. Revision makes the piece SOUND a whole lot better--which addresses the traits of ideas, organization, voice, word choice, and sentence fluency. Editing makes the piece LOOK better (conventions). [read more...]

Stretching Ideas in the Primary Grades
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Are you a primary teacher struggling to stretch the ideas and details provided by your young writers? If so, here are three ideas that can help: IDEA 1: Start by asking "why?" You'll love this idea from Dana Schaal, a kindergarten teacher from Swayzee Elementary. In an email she wrote: [read more...]

Writing with More Details
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

When Sherri Hyatt (Upland Elementary) works with her first graders to brainstorm words for the day's writing, she makes a list on chart paper. As the students offer suggestions, Sherri writes each detail word in a different color. [read more...]

Super Strategies for Stretching Sentences
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

First grade teacher Ruth Leman (Hoagland Elementary School) has gotten her students to beef up their writing by challenging them to “super size” their sentences. First, she acquired a large and small fry holder from three different fast food [read more...]