Teaching realistic fiction genre study? Start by explaining the elements. Then read short stories. Finally, ask kids to write their own!
Looking for a way to end the writing year with transference, engagement, and noticeable growth? Choosing a familiar writing unit may be just the way.
This is a fantastic tool for students who struggle with coming up with their own ideas of what to write. Each prompt gives students the opportunity to choose a topic they may know and want to write about. There are a total of fourteen writing prompts with visuals. **Recommendation: Cut them out, hole punch and clip them together with a binder ring.
Do you teach how to write realistic fiction in your first or second grade classroom? See how this first grade teacher has students creating characters,
Teaching realistic fiction genre study? Start by explaining the elements. Then read short stories. Finally, ask kids to write their own!
We are knee-deep in our 5th grade historical fiction unit right now. This is always a favorite each year. We've blogged about our various HF adventures HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. In 5th grade, kids have already completed a HF unit when they were with us in 4th grade. During that time, they all read the SAME book. This year, to take them a little deeper, the kids main focus is studying the ERA they selected. Due to this, kids are all reading DIFFERENT books that are within the same era as their book club members. Our students also had to select a different era this year from the one they studied last year in our space. Eras we focused on this year: Colonial America, Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, Civil War, WW2, and Civil Rights. Our favorite part of this, is that kids of all levels are in book clubs together, really creating fantastic discourse tied to era understanding and how their book fit together. A huge part of any historical fiction unit is nonfiction understanding of the era they are studying. We spent the first week+ immersing ourselves in nonfiction materials tied to our era. Kids shared ideas with each other and created a group timeline outlining important events from their era. As we have been working through our books and discussions, they started to bring up and share where their books fit into these non-fiction timelines. Last year, we made "double timelines", which were fun, but only one book could fit in that framework. This year, our amazing student teacher, Megan Leverence (she's looking for a job, people...anyone hiring?? :) found a great blog post. You can read it HERE. She took the idea and changed it up a little bit, and found a way to connect it to the timelines the kids created. Rather than write up "reviews," like the blog suggested, she had the kids create "book timelines" of the books they had been reading. She had them find 5-10 important events in their books (no spoilers allowed), and create a timeline "flipbook." Once the kids created their "flipbook timelines", they placed their books on the nonfiction timelines. This created a fantastic visual of where all of the books we were reading fit across history. We utilized a huge bulletin board in our hall to hang all the timelines and books on. It's been a great discussion and visual tool for all of our kiddos. How have you taught HF units? How do you bring in nonfiction? We'd love to learn with you! Happy Teaching, Angela
This handout explains 15 different techniques writers use to infuse their writing (and/or characters) with voice. Each author's craft technique is defined and is shown in an example from either Kathryn Erskine's "Mockingbird" or Rodman Philbrick's "Freak the Mighty," which I read aloud to my student...
Do you teach how to write realistic fiction in your first or second grade classroom? See how this first grade teacher has students creating characters,
Teaching realistic fiction genre study? Start by explaining the elements. Then read short stories. Finally, ask kids to write their own!
Whether your characters are getting into swordfights, falling out of high windows, or escaping dramatic fires, you may be wondering what sort of injuries they would realistically sustain. This guide aims to explain some common injuries in fiction, as well as how to write each one. I did my best to research this (check
Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. She writes weird books in lots of weird genres like fantasy ( Bl...
The writer's guide to horses to help you write realistic scenes. Find out how far a horse can travel, how long a horse can gallop, and more.
One of the first things to think about when writing realistic fiction is creating believable characters. Realistic characters are the heart and soul of any
Language Arts Classroom Poster. Created by The Writing Doctor. Visit "The Write Prescription" dot com.
Sociologist Hannah Emery offers tips for designing realistic magic academies in fantasy fiction.
Fictional friendships are important. How do you ensure that these ring true? I’ve already shared a post about writing romance, but romantic relationships aren’t the only type that need …
If you're writing fantasy of sci-fi, you may need to create fictional languages. Here are five concrete tips for imagining new languages in realistic ways.
Martial artist Eric Primm discusses realistic fighting skills and abilities for fiction writers.
The historical writer wields the power of 'Small History' and it ability to bring to life people's everyday experience
First things first: Why in realistic fiction, exclusively? Because that’s what I write myself, and the majority of what I’ve read has also been realistic fiction. I don’t feel qu…
God bless Fantasy writers. I mean, seriously. We’re a crazy bunch, aren’t we? As if it wasn’t already hard enough to write a novel and create realistic characters, we insist on quadrupling the difficulty level by creating places and races that don’t exist. Because real life is too boring for us! That stuff is for […]
Fictional friendships are important. How do you ensure that these ring true? I’ve already shared a post about writing romance, but romantic relationships aren’t the only type that need …
Whether you want to write genre fiction, realist novels, poetry, or anything else, Le Guin’s thoughts on the craft are always worth heeding.
Astronomical engineer Tom Benedict discusses telescopes, observatories, and modern astronomy for sci-fi writers.
Oh. My. Stars. Nine months, you guys. It’s been nine months since I updated my website. That is ridiculous, and while I completely understand that my excuses will help no one, I will offer a …
