Thirty Days to Unlock FCAT Writing Success - Polk County School ...

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Week Five, Day Five: Believe It or Not Activity Believe It or Not Objective: Students will create a personal narrative or reflective essay using revision and elaboration techniques to create a more layered piece of writing. Time: 20 minutes to a full class period • Assign groups or rows of students the following sentence beginnings to produce a personal narrative or reflective essay (100-150 words): A. I can’t believe I was afraid of… B. I can’t believe I was intimidated by… C. I can’t believe he/she never told me… D. I can’t believe how many months it’s been since… E. When I first heard the bad news, I… • Inform students that • The writing content may be true or fiction • They are to write for only 10 minutes • They are to write on every other line • Their writing will be shared with the class • Tell the students to begin writing. At the end of 10 minutes, instruct them to STOP. Instruct the students to add the following to their original piece of writing using a pen with a different color ink each time they make an addition. • 5-10 new adjectives • 5-10 action verbs • 5-10 concrete nouns • 3-5 “color” words • This should take no more than 5 minutes; however, it can be challenging because no new sentences can be added. • After they add the new words, ask students to share their writings with the rest of the class. • Put the pieces into the students’ portfolios for future elaboration. 80
Additional Combinations of Activities for Week Five: Ten Teacher or Student-Led Activities for Word Choice 1. Build a word bank (in your notebook,, bulletin board, classroom word wall, etc.) of words you like. 2. Build a memorial to DEAD words. Find a mutual place in the classroom to get rid of all dead words such as good, nice, very, etc. 3. Find HEAVY words. In any piece of writing, some words and phrases are asked to carry most of the weight, most of the meaning. Get an excerpt from any piece that is rich with HEAVY words. Students should circle those words that carry the most weight then compare to see if others chose the same. Look through your own writing to see if you can identify HEAVY words. You should be able to do so. 4. Connotation/Denotation Thesaurus work. Students work in groups to look up a word (from a list of words that have multiple meanings) provided by the teacher. Ask students to choose 6-10 of the most interesting diverse variations on their word theme, and create a lesson in which they make the nuances of meaning clear. They can do written or oral definitions, give a quiz, dramatize the meanings—or do anything they wish to make the meanings clear, and to make the point that synonyms are not all interchangeable. 5. Talk about the life of language. Have a discussion about some words that are no longer in use and new words that have just been created. Make a list of words that we use now that will most likely be gone in the next fifty years. 6. Take out JARGON. Again, the books for dummieshas grown popular because of their ability to remove jargon from typically difficult text. Bring in a piece of technical writing and have students (possibly in pairs) work on revising it to make it more user-friendly and less jargonistic. 7. Collect quotations with really great language in it. One of my favorites is by Mark Twain, “Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.” I love this quote because the words are so rich. They are simple enough words individually, but together in this sense it becomes very rich. 8. Play word games so that students become fascinated with words. Tell about the origins of words such as Bikini (named after the island where the atomic bomb was tested—recognizing the bathing suit could create the same reaction). Talk about cliches and their origins. Ask about words or sayings that are specific to family members. What colloquial sayings do your students know? 9. Highlight all the verbs and nouns in your writing and revise at least half of them to improve. Changing verbs often requires rewriting or restructuring the sentences. Make sure they are well-aware of all the “be” verbs. 10. Pay close attention to adverbs, especially used as taglines in dialogue. Use “said.” As Strunk and White so eloquently say “Do not dress words up by adding -ly to them, as though putting a hat on a horse. “ -- Elements of Style, 4th ed.. 81
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Thirty Days to FCAT Writing Success
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Day Three, Four and Five: Conclusio
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Week Six, Day Two and Three: ......
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Week One: Sunshine State Standards
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Conventions The student produces fi
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The RAFT Strategy: with Carousel Br
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Use RAFT to Create Content-Specific
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Day Three, Four and Five: Writing R
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Week One Additional Activities: Gro
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2. Teach (Model). Select a piece of
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SOAPS Organizer, With Explanations
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Week Two: Planning and Organizing,
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Conventions The student produces fi
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Day One: Review the Writing Process
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Page 33 and 34: Introductions: A Few Words for Stud
Page 35 and 36: I am Capable of More Than I Think I
Page 37 and 38: Dirt Bike Daniel-Oxford, Connecticu
Page 39 and 40: Leave the Last Cookie Emily- Austin
Page 41 and 42: Famous Last Movie Lines “Because
Page 43 and 44: Directed Free Writing Directed Free
Page 45 and 46: Reflecting on your Rough Draft: Rea
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Page 51 and 52: Conventions The student produces fi
Page 53 and 54: Week Three, Day One: Defining and U
Page 55 and 56: Elaboration Using Sensory Language
Page 57 and 58: Week Three, Day Two: More Strategie
Page 59 and 60: Using “DRAPES” for Elaborating
Page 61 and 62: Dear Zagat Guide, I have a bone to
Page 63 and 64: Week Four, Day Four: Revise Outrage
Page 65 and 66: Week Four, Day Five: Gallery Walk A
Page 67 and 68: Week Five: Sunshine State Standards
Page 71 and 72: After the large pieces had fallen,
Page 73 and 74: Article C: The Farside Comes to Lif
Page 75 and 76: Tree Map Two: Categorizing by Audie
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Page 83 and 84: One Syllable Words Big words can ma
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Page 93 and 94: Verda, by Albert Guasch. Used by pe
Page 95 and 96: The Optimist, by Chris Scarborough.
Page 97 and 98: Chiaroscuro 2, by Igor Kraguljac. U
Page 99 and 100: Nathan, by Igor Kraguljac. Used by
Page 101 and 102: Uri, by Igor Kraguljac. Used by per
Page 103 and 104: 12. How many sentences did it take
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