Every word counts… That’s what fifth grade teacher John Stoffel pushes his writers to understand. He sets this tone early in the school year with his annual “Fall-Walk Single Sentence” contest.

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 class. Even John submits a sentence. Here is a look at this year’s entries. (The first four were declared this year’s “contest winners.”)

1. One freezing cold day the sun’s warmth vanished away.
2. A brownish oak leaf lies on the ground with white frost outlining it like lace.
3. The giant oak tree with the shape of a moon in it waits for fall to be over.
4. The tip of one small leaf is all that remains green on this plant.
5. When the wind blows, the weeds make a noise like a shaking rattlesnake tail.
6. The blowing wind carries the light seeds into the field.
7. I walk in the wind as the crackling leaves cling to my feet.
8. The snake hole was too small for my hand to fit in it.
9. In the chilly air, flying beautifully, two birds circled through the soft but smeared clouds.
10. Dead, ripped-up yellow grass blows all over the dirty ground.
11. The leaves turn scarlet, dandelion, and cherry in the fall.
12. The wind blows wildly through the bare tree.
13. Red and blue birds sing to the world, and when the wind stops blowing they start to sing again.
14. A robin chirps madly at a squirrel.
15. When the wind blows, green leaves fall.
16. In the fall, when the wind blows, the leaves fall to the ground.
17. In a big tree, eleven colorful leaves still remain.
18. As the wind blows, leaves fly through the air.
19. In the shiny, blue sky, not many clouds float over the trees with no leaves.
20. Five little acorns hang off a branch.
21. The brightness of the sun sparkled on the beautiful green grass and the colorful leaves.
22. A gentle breeze causes a few leaves to fall.
23. The leaves shake and shiver as the wind blows.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:42 am and is filed under 6 Traits of Writing, Ideas, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.