Using the Smekens' Voice Poster to Teach Word Choice

Here’s a terrific idea from Jordana Anderson (Aylesworth Elementary, Portage, IN) for teaching both voice and word choice.

Using the Smekens Education “Let Your Voice be Heard” poster, Jordana cut out the faces from the poster and then had kids discuss the different feelings associated with each facial expression. Then she challenged students to come up with more descriptive words to describe the face.

Take the face labeled “nervous,” for example. Jordana told students that in their writing, instead of saying the character is nervous, they should use descriptive words to show nervous. She brainstormed with students for actions that show nervous like biting your nails, twisting your hair, fidgeting, looking at the clock a lot, and so on.

After Jordana collected 4-6 “showing details” for each of the feelings facial expressions from the poster, she typed the detail words, taped them to the back side of the faces, laminated them, and placed them into a container she called her “feelings box.”

Then, when the kids were actually writing, instead of using simple telling words, they were challenged to go to the “feelings box” to find the more appropriate, showing words. It improved their word choice and of course their voice.

Whether you use the Smekens’ voice poster or some other tool, it’s still important for kids to reach deeper into their word bank to build effective descriptions. Remind students that in their writing they should not just tell the reader that a character in the story is sad. Instead, show the reader what sad looks like. Show the character’s head hanging down. Show frowning; show crying; show trembling lips. In other words, describe the much smaller, tiny, close-up details instead of just telling the reader that the character is “sad.”