Are your students having trouble adding interest to their writing? Does their writing all sound the same? Is it missing a hook? Missing an organized middle? Do they write, “THE END” to let the reader know they’re finished? Keep reading to find out how to help your students take their writing from drab to FAB! […]

Before I get on with the real topic of this post, let me thank all of you who were able to commiserate with me on the substitute situation. It seems like many of you have been there too! I think I finally have my friends back on track. It's amazing how long it takes to recover from one wacky day! Now, on to writing. . . At the start of the school year, I was looking for a new way to focus my friends on the six traits of writing and the reading strategies we use. I came across the idea of using "VOICES" to emphasize writing traits while searching the web. It seemed a perfect fit for what I was hoping to do in writing. Here is a picture of my VOICES board that I took a little earlier in the year. We have more cards under each category at this point in the year. You can see that the six traits are listed at the top, forming "VOICES." Under each one, we put a reminder of the writing skill or strategy we have worked on. Here are a few up-close pictures of the different categories. As we do a mini-lesson on a certain trait, I write a card that summarized the idea. I then have a friend place it under the correct trait category. I find the best time to do this is at the end of the period, during sharing time. It's a great close to the lesson after my friends have shared how they used the skill in writing that day. Ideally, it would be better if a different student wrote the actual card each day. More participation and ownership for them. However, my writing period is so short for all I have to do, I just don't have time. I usually just prewrite them before the lesson or quickly between a conference. Here's why this bulletin board works so well. It is right above my meeting table. It's super easy to refer to during conferencing. It's also pretty big which makes it easily visible from anywhere in the room. If I'm meeting with a student at their desk, we can still both easily refer to it. Also, having the strategies and skills we have been working on posted like that allows me to quickly draw a friends attention to a strategy that they may need. For example, I can meet with a friend and say, "I notice in your paper that in this paragraph many of your sentences begin with I. Look at our sentence fluency chart. Which idea up there do you think will help with this?" As I noted earlier, there are more ideas/skills up there than the one in the picture at this point in the year. This works the brain of my friend in a couple of ways. It forces them to evaluate the ideas/skills in that category to determine which one addresses their need. It also gives my friend a starting point. In this example, once my friend identifies varying sentence beginnings as the skill they need to work on, we can then brainstorm some ways do that. It's higher level thinking for my friend than if I just said, "Oh, we need to vary how these sentences start." I've also seen other teachers use this chart for goal setting. If there is a specific trait goal you want your friend to work on until your next conference, you set that as their weekly writing goal. On the board, you would leave the area under the trait title empty. This is where, once your friend has set a writing goal with you, they put their name on a sticky and put it on the chart. I kind of like this idea, but just haven't gotten around to doing it. I think it would work well if only because it's quick reminder to you as to what trait each friend should be working on. However, something about posting their names under areas of need for all to see doesn't sit right. I'll have to think more on that use of it. Obviously, all the different ideas/skills for each trait won't fit on the board, but that's okay. I only want the ones that are relevant to what we are currently learning up. It also allows me to put up again the ones I notice we need to revisit. Either way, it's always current and applicable to what my friends are working on. So, that's how I've been using my VOICES board. It's my first year using it, but I think it's a keeper for me! Tomorrow, I will post the board I have for reading strategies. It's fairly similar, but is all about FACES, not VOICES! UPDATE: I got a lot of requests for the headings I made. I'm glad you like them. There is a link for the "VOICES" headings in this blog post. They will download in a PDF. Enjoy!

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Writing goes all ways: forwards, backwards, sideways, over there, and over here. In fact, the only piece of the writing process that occurs at a set point in time is publishing. The writing process can be tricky for students, and they need to shown that the writing process is not a standard process

An eclectic little stack today. Click on the images to go to a link about the book. I’ve been enjoying books I can read a little here and a little there. This book, however, is one I found my…

Approaches to Writing Andrews-Goebel, Nancy. 2002. The Pot that Juan Built. Illustrated by David Diaz. NY: Lee & Low Books. Burleigh, Robert. 2006. Tiger of the Snows: Tenzing Norgay: The Boy Whose Dream Was Everest. Illustrated by Ed Young. New York: Atheneum Books. Dorros, Arthur. 1997. Radio Man/Don Radio. NY: Harper Trophy. Highway, Tomson. 2010. Fox on the Ice. Illustrated by Brian Deines. Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside (Bilingual: English and Cree). Giovanni, Nikki. 2005. Rosa. Illustrated by Bryan Collier. New York: Holt. Hill, Laban Carrick. 2010. Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave. Illustrated by Bryan Collier. NY: Little, Brown & Company. Mannis, Celeste Davidson. 2005. One Leaf Rides the Wind: Counting in a Japanese Garden. Illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung. New York: Puffin. Miller, William. 2001. Rent Party Jazz. Illustrated by Charlotte Riley-Webb. NY: Lee & Low Books. Nelson, S.D. 2006. Quiet Hero: The Ira Hayes Story. NY: Lee & Low Books. Raschka, Chris. 1992. Charlie Parker Played Be Bop. NY: Scholastic. Ringgold, Faith. 2003. If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks. New York: Aladdin. Rubin, Susan Goldman. 2009. Jacob Lawrence in the City. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. Young, Ed. 2005. Beyond the Great Mountains: A Visual Poem About China. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle. The Sounds of Language Battle-Lavert, Gwendolyn. 2003. Papa’s Mark. Illustrated by Colin Bootman. New York: Holiday House. Buchanan, Ken. 1991. This House is Made of Mud/Esta casa está hecha de lodo. Illustrated by Libra Tracy. Translated by Patricia Hinton Davison. Flagstaff, AZ: Luna Rising. Forman, Ruth. 2007. Young Cornrows Callin Out the Moon. Illustrated by Cbabi Bayoc. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Gunning, Monica. 1999. Not a Copper Penny in Me House: Poems from the Caribbean. Illus- trated by Frane Lessac. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press. hooks, bell. 2004. Skin Again. Illustrated by Chris Raschka. New York: Hyperion. Lord, Michelle. 2006. Little Sap and Monsieur Rodin. Illustrated by Felicia Hoshino. New York: Lee & Low. Luján, Jorge. 2006. Tarde de invierno/Winter afternoon. Illustrated by Mandana Sadat. Tornoto: Groundwood Books. Mora, Pat. 2007. Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué rico! Americas’Sproutings. Illustrated by Rafael López. NY: Lee & Low. Nye, Naomi, Shihab. 1997. Sitti’s Secrets. Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. NewYork: Alladin. Santiago, Chiori. 2002. Home to Medicine Mountain. Illustrated by Judith Lowry. San Francisco, CA: Chil- dren’s Book Press. Schertle, Alice. 2007. We. Illustrated by Kenneth Addison. NY: Lee & Low. Smith, Cynthia Leitich. 2000. Jingle Dancer. Illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu. NY: Morrow. Williams, Shirley Anne. 1997. Working Cotton. Illustrated by Carole Byard. Orlando, FL: Voyager. Woodson, Jacqueline. 2001. The Other Side. Illustrated by E. B. Lewis. New York: Putnam. Text Crafting Ashley, Bryan. 1996. Sing to the Sun. NY: Harper Trophy. Brown, Monica. 2004. My Name Is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz/Me llamo Celia: La vida de Celia Cruz. Illustrated by Rafael López. Flagstaff, AZ: Luna Rising. Bruchac, Joseph. 2006. Wabi: A Hero’s Tale. NY: Dial. Buchmann, Stephen & Diana Cohn. 2007. The Bee Tree. Illustrated by Paul Mirocha. El Paso: Cinco Puntos. Campbell, Nicola I. 2005. Shi-shi-etko. Illustrated by Kim La- Fave. Translated by David Unger. Toronto, ON: Groundwood. Cohn, Diana. 2002. ¡Si, Se Puede!/Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A. Illustrated by Francisco Delgado. El Paso: Cinco Puntos. Gunning, Monica. 2004. A Shelter in Our Car. Illustrated by Elaine Pedlar. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Hayes, Joe. 2006. The Gum Chewing Rattler. Illustrated by Antonio Castro L. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos. Herrera, Juan Felipe. 2004. Featherless/ Desplumado. Illustrated by Ernesto Cuevas, Jr. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press. Hopkinson, Deborah. 1999. A Band of Angels: A Story Inspired by the Jubilee Singers. Illustrated by Raúl Cólon. New York: Athe- neum. Hubbard, Crystal. 2005. Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream. Illustrated by Randy DuBurke. New York: Lee & Low. Keeler, Patricia A and Júlio T. Leitão. 2006. Drumbeat in Our Feet. Illustrated by Patricia A. Keeler. NY: Lee & Low. Khan, Rukhsana. 1988. The Roses in My Carpets. Illustrated by Ronald Himler. Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside. Krishnaswami, Uma. 2006. Closet Ghosts. Illustrated by Shi-raaz Bhabha. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Ryan, Pam Muñoz. 2002. When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson. Illustrated by Brian Selznick. New York: Scholastic Sun, Yung Shin. 2004. Cooper’s Lesson. Kim Cogan. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Taylor, Gaylia. 2006. George Crum and the Saratoga Chip. Illustrated by Frank Morrison. New York: Lee & Low. Williams, Mary. 2005. Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Illustrated by Gregory Christie. NY: Lee & Low. Text Structure Cheng, Andrea. 2004. Honeysuckle House. Asheville, NC: Front Street. Pinkney, Andrea Davis with Scat Cat Monroe. 2002. Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso. Illustrated by Brian Pinkney. New York: Hyperion. Reynolds, Jan. 2006. Celebrate! Connections among Cultures. New York: Lee & Low. Schotter, Roni. 1997. Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street. Illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. New York: Orchard. Tran, Truong. 2003. Going Home, Coming Home/Ve Nha, Tham Que Huong. Illustrated by Ann Phong Van Camp, Richard. 2003. What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? Illustrated by George Littlechild. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. Weatherford, Carole Boston. 2006. Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. New York: Hyperion. Wight, Al. 2005. Do Mice Eat Rice? Illustrated by Roger Clarke. Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing. Ways with Genre Alarcón, Francisco X. 2005. Poems to Dream Together/ Poemas para soñar juntos. Illustrated by Paula Bar- ragán. NY: Lee & Low Books. Arcellana, Francisco. 1999 [1938]. The Mats. Illustrated by Hermès Alègrè. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller. Bley, Anette. 2007. And What Comes After a Thousand? La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller. Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki). 2000. Pushing up the Sky: Seven Native American Plays for Children. Illustrated by Teresa Flavin. New York: Dial. Crews, Donald. 1991. Bigmama’s. NY: Greenwillow Books. Hinojosa, Tish. 2002. Cada Niño/ Every Child: A Bilingual Songbook for Kids. Illustrated by Lucia Angela Perez. El Paso: Cinco Puntos. Hurston, Zora Neale. 2006. The Six Fools. Adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas. Illustrated by Ann Tanksley. New York: HarperCollins. Krach, Maywan Shen. 1997. D Is for Doufu: An Alphabet Book of Chinese Culture. Illustrated by Hongbin Zhang. Arcadia, CA: Shen’s Books. Liu, Jae Soo. 2002. Yellow Umbrella. Music by Don Il Sheen. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller. (CD included). Mora, Pat. 1997. Tomás and the Library Lady. Illustrated by Raul Colón. New York: Knopf. Muse, Daphne. 2005. Entrance Place of Wonders: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance. Illustrated by CharloteeRiley-Webb. NY: Abrams Books. Myers, Walter Dean. 1996. Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse. New York: HarperTrophy. Pinkney, Andrea Davis. 2000. Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters. Illustrated by StephenAlcorn. San Diego: Harcourt. Shea, Pegi Deitz and Cynthia Weill. 2003. Ten Mice for Tet. Illustrations by Tô Ngoc Trang. Embroidery by PhamViet Dinh. San Francisco: Chronicle. Steltzer, Ulli. 1999. Building an Igloo. NY: Henry Holt & Co. Sweet, Melissa. 2005. Carmine: A Little More Red. Boston: Houghton. Thong, Roseanne. 2005. Round Is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes. Illustrated by Grace Lin. NY: Scholastic. Tingle, Tim. 2006. Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom. Illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos. Velasquez, Eric. 2001. Grandma’s Records. NY: Walker. Winter, Jeanette. 2006. Calavera Abecedario: A Day of the Dead Alphabet Book. Orlando, FL: Voyager. Yoo, Paula. 2005. Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story. Illustrated by Dom Lee. NY: Lee & Low. Conventions of Language Bruno, Elsa Knight. 2009. Punctuation Celebration. Illustrated by Jenny Whitehead. NY: Henry Holt. Lowry, Lois. 2009. Crow Call. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. NY: Scholastic Press. Park, Linda Sue, and Julia Durango. 2005. Yum! Yuck! A Foldout Book of People Sounds. Illustrated by Sue Ramá. Cambridge, MA: Charlesbridge. Lyon, George Ella. 2011. Which Side are You On? Illustrated by Christopher Cardinale. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press. Pulver, Robin. 2003. Punctuation Takes a Vacation. Illustrated by Lynne Rowe Reed. NY: Holiday House. Raschka, Chris. 1993. Yo! Yes! New York: Orchard. Truss. Lynne. 2007. The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage without Apostrophes! Illustrated by Bonnie Timmons. NY: Putnam. Zolotow, Charlotte. 2000. Do You Know What I’ll Do? Illustrated by Javaka Steptoe. NY: HarperCollins. Connecting Illustrations & Text From Crazy Horse's Vision. Illustrated by S.D. Nelson (Lee & Low) Brooks, Gwendolyn. 2007. Bronzeville Boys and Girls. Illustrated by Faith Ringgold. New York: Amistad. Bruchac, Joseph. 2000. Crazy Horse’s Vision. Illustrated by S. D. Nelson. New York: Lee & Low. Chen, Chin-Yuan. 2003. On My Way To Buy Eggs. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller. Crews, Doanld. 1998. Night at the Fair. NY: Greenwillow. Dunbar, Paul Laurence. 1999. Jump Back Honey: The Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Illustrated by Ashley Bryan, Carole Byard, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Brian &Jerry Pinkney & Faith Ringgold. NY: Hyperion. Frame, Jeron Ashford. 2003. Yesterday I Had the Blues. Illustrated by R. Gregory Chrisite. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle. Gerstein, Mordicai. 2009. A Book. NY: Roaring Press Books. Herrera, Juan Felipe. 2003. Super Cilantro Girl/La superniña del cilantro. Illustrated by Honorio Robleda Tapia. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press Lofthouse, Liz. 2007. Ziba Came on a Boat. Illustrated by Robert Ingpen. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller. Robles, Anthony D. 2003. Lakas and the Manilatown Fish/Si Lakas at ang Isdang Manilatown. Illustrated by Carl Angel. Eloisa D. de Jesus and Magdalena de Guzman, trans. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press. Say, Allen. 1993. Grandfather’s Journey. San Diego,CA: Houghton Mifflin. Velasquez, Eric. 2010. Grandma's Gift. NY: Walker Books for Young Readers. Williams, Vera B. 1984. A Chair for My Mother. NY: Harper-Trophy.

All religions claim they are the only one, true belief system, but in reality many much older myths and traditions find their way into these new cults. So are we worshipping old gods and goddesses?

When I attended the Pre-Ap Conference this summer, we were taught various ways to help students interact and understand the authors' tone, theme, etc. One of these exercises was called "DIDLS" (Diction, Images, Details, Language, Sentence Structure). I worked with them on a passage from The Wednesday Wars last week and it went SO WELL!! They got it!! Exercise: Gary D. Schmidt, author of The Wednesday Wars, Okay for Now, and many others has an incredible way of writing which makes you feel like you're part of the story not only as an observer but as a character! He is AMAZING!! I had the students read the following passage from page 23 of The Wednesday Wars: “Then Mrs. Baker and I sat. Alone. Facing each other. The classroom clock clicked off the minutes. She was probably considering what she could legally do to remind me how regrettable it was that my family was Presbyterian.” WOW!! Based on the “DIDLS” formula, how is this passage effective to create additional meaning? He used sentence fragments to emphasize meaning/emotion. He used sensory details. He explained the situation well enough we could all think of a similar situation we'd experienced! Using this method, describe a situation where you may have felt the same way as Holling with Mrs. Baker. Then, this week, I had them create a page in the Interactive Notebooks to help them remember the steps for "DIDLS." We'll review this throughout the year as we study other authors and text. It's the same format as the one we did on PLOT. (Definitions for each section were taken from The College Board Pre-AP: The AP Vertical Teams Guide for English textbook we received at the conference. BTW...GREAT resource!) DIDLS Masters

Can you provide meaningful instruction without a grammar worksheet? You can, and here are ten alternatives to the grammar worksheet.

List of 25 world's most interesting and unique ancient cities and towns - such cities and towns which are at least 1500 years old.

Temple furnishings from the earliest days of the Egyptian state, like this well-preserved pottery stand, are extremely rare. The stand was excavated at the site of Abydos, near the temple of the funerary god Khentiamentiu (a precursor of Osiris). The temple context suggests that it served in the presentation of offerings, perhaps in the cult of the unidentified ram deity represented at the top in raised relief.

Are you a creative writer? Check out what you might be doing wrong and improve your craft!

The rich scribal tradition of ancient Egypt was one of the foremost pillars of the development of that culture.

He aquí la explicación de por qué parece haber un helicóptero entre los antiguos jeroglíficos del Gran Templo de Abidos.

Explore Bill MacDonald’s 104 photos on Flickr!

Are your students struggling in writing? Do you want to transform your reluctant writers into ROCKSTAR WRITERS? This easy and painless way of teaching writing will have you doing the happy dance. You will have students BEGGING to write and see them ROCK the standardized writing test! So let's

I found this awesome idea for a writing journal on Pinterest. I thought it would be a great "get to know you" assignment at the beginning of the year. You can find the link to the original here. It is also a great literacy blog! This is my example I will use for class. I think it is a neat project to use at the beginning of the year so my students get a chance to know me as well.

If you’ve ever had (or possibly you currently do have) a student who struggled with phonics even after receiving daily, systematic instruction, it’s most likely because they have not yet developed their phonemic awareness abilities. Read more

So, you have to teach writing, huh? Or maybe you already teach writing and you're looking for some fresh insight? Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is the blog post for you!I've compiled a video post

[EGYPT 29924] ’Isis in Horus Shrine at Abydos’. This relief detail on the west wall of the Horus Shrine in the Seti I Temple at Abydos shows Isis wearing a crown which consists of a vulture (the goddess Nekhbet). The sun disk which she wears on top of the bird is outside the frame of the picture. The Horus Shrine is one of three small shrines that are located north of the Inner Osiris Hall. The relief is part of a scene in which Osiris and Isis are offered incense by pharaoh Seti I. A wider view of this relief is provided by photo 29917. The Seti Temple at Abydos was begun by Seti I and completed by his son Ramses II in the 13th century BC. Photo Paul Smit.

Persuasive writing is one of my all-time favorite writing units!! There are so many fun activities to do and persuasion comes so naturally for the kids (you know they try to persuade their parents for things ALL the time!) I begin this unit by having students "Take a Stand" and make a choice between several pairs of options - McDonald's or Burger King, Disney or Nickelodeon, etc. Once they've made their choice they have to support it and tell why that is the better option. This is a great way to kick off the unit. Once we've modeled several together, I partner them up for writing discussions, give them a set of "Take a Stand" cards and let them continue practicing. After discussions, they're ready to move to the writing stage and we learn to write opinion pieces with supporting reasons and then on to lots of other persuasive pieces. Read-Alouds Some of my FAVORITE books to use during this unit include... I told you that I LOVE this book and double dip with it in my letter writing and persuasive writing units. We especially focus on the closings of the letters and notice how the word choice was carefully selected to help with the persuasion. Immediately after this book we also read... After reading this book, students think of an unusual animal that they would like to have as a pet. They brainstorm ways their animal could be useful/helpful and then write a persuasive letter to their parents to convince them to let them have the pet. They turn out SO CUTE!! Students turn their letters into the animal they chose for a display....precious!! Some of the other books we read during this unit are... This is a GREAT book to read and then have your students write from the perspective of the "bad" character from a fairytale having him/her convince readers that he/she was just misunderstood and is not a bad guy after all! Speaking of perspective, I also have my kids write a persuasive letter to THEMSELVES from an inanimate object. I model doing this using my purse (it tries to persuade me to keep it neater) or my high heels (they try to persuade me to give them a break and wear tennis shoes for a day). With a lot of modeling and brainstorming they really get the hang of this and GO ALL OUT with creative ideas and voice galore! Activities Some of my other favorite activities in this unit include... Book Persuasions Students create new book covers for one of their favorite books and try to persuade their friends to read the book. Persuasive Animal Dialogues After reading Hey, Little Ant students are paired as ants/anteaters and write persuasive dialogues where the ant is trying to persuade the anteater not to eat him and the anteater is trying to persuade the ant that he must! After modeling these, students select another pair of animals (predator/prey) to create original persuasive dialogues to perform for the class. Classroom Mascot Students choose an animal they think would best represent our class and write a persuasive speech on why it should be our mascot. They present these speeches to the class and then the class votes for a mascot! Celebration This unit integrates with our social studies Economics unit for the celebration. Students create products (I require them to make something that only uses PAPER to make it fair for all students) that they will sell at our class store. Then they write commercials to persuade their classmates to buy their products. Before writing these commercials, we watch lots of examples of cereal and toy commercials from the 80s/90s at http://www.retrojunk.com/content/sort/commercial/list/category/1/cereal and discuss persuasion techniques used in them. I film students presenting their commercials individually, create a mini-movie of them and we watch them all together! We then hold our store and students actually purchase products (with Madden Money, of course!) Afterwards, they hold reflections about supply/demand and how their commercials affected their sales. Find these Persuasive Writing activities at Teacher's Clubhouse. What are your favorite activities or books to use for teaching persuasive writing? There's only a couple of days left to win the HearALL Assessment Recorder - Enter Now! Also, visit Lightbulb Minds' Facebook page and leave a comment telling the ONE thing that would make this coming school year the best school year ever and you could win a FREE UNIT! All posts in this series: #1 - Writers' Notebooks #2 - Writing Workshop Schedule & Story Tees #3 - Publishing #4 - Friendly Letters #5 - How-To Writing #6 - Persuasive Writing #7 - Writing Memoirs/Personal Narratives

Fragment of hippopotamus ivory with the name of King Aha, 1st Dynasty (c.3100 BC), Abydos, Egypt. British Museum (EA 35513)

Dr. Douglas Petrovich’s book on the world’s oldest alphabetic script and a new companion volume on evidence for Israelites in Egypt are set to be published.