Do you have an idea for a novel? Before you start writing, here are two exercises that will help you test out your story idea before penning the first draft!
So I know that I usually write about how to cook frozen chicken in your instant pot , but today I wanted to talk about something that I have...
WriQ is currently a FREE tool that helps teachers assess writing in Google Docs. This Google Chrome extension helps teachers not only assess writing, including grammar, punctuation, spelling and more but also helps teachers track progress over time.
Want to write a story that works? Learn how to plot your novel using the Save the Cat! Beat Sheet in this post! (Free worksheet included!) #writingtips
In my opinion, Obsidian is one of the best writing tools out there. It doesn't matter if you want to use it for planning your story, writing down your characters' relationships, use it for world-building, or write the whole story! You can easily do all of these steps in Obsidian. This blog post show
Is it just me or do second graders can not write sentences? These activities are the perfect way to teach your students how to write better sentences!
**These worksheets are included in my complete Persuasive Writing Worksheet Pack** Persuasive Writing Handouts - No Prep Printables This persuasive writing pack includes a range of worksheets and activities to support the teaching of persuasive writing. Worksheets include: Persuasive writing template. Persuasive writing sentence starters. Persuasive writing topics. Persuasive writing checklist. This resource includes a digital (Google Slides) version. See the end page of the resource for the details and the link to access the digital version. ________________________________________ For more persuasive writing resources, click the links below: Persuasive Writing - Marking Assessment Rubrics Persuasive Writing Worksheets - Persuasive Tools Persuasive Writing Worksheets - Include Expert Opinions Persuasive Writing Posters - Earth Tones Classroom Décor Persuasive Text Posters - Classroom Decor Persuasive Writing PowerPoint - Guided Teaching Persuasive Writing Prompts - Lightning Writing Persuasive Writing Posters - Classroom Decor Persuasive Texts - Writing Samples with Comprehension Questions ________________________________________ For more writing resources, click the links below: Compound Words - Worksheet Pack Understanding Nouns Worksheets - No Prep Printables Add The Adjective To The Sentences - Worksheet Pack Nouns, Pronouns & Capital Letters - Grammar Worksheets with Answers Add Punctuation to the Sentences - 10 Worksheets Reading and Grammar Pack, Google Slides - Distance Learning Parts of Speech Grammar Workbook Homographs PowerPoint - Interactive, full lesson Parts of Speech - Fill The Blanks Worksheets Verbs PowerPoint - Interactive ________________________________________ Follow Me Click the green star at the top of my page to be the first to receive updates about new products and discounts. ________________________________________ Feedback Please help me to improve my products by leaving valuable feedback. Simply click the 'Provide Feedback' button on your purchases page and leave a rating and a comment. You will also gain credits to use for further purchases. ________________________________________ Copyright Information This product is not for commercial use, individual use only. If you plan to share this product with others, please purchase extra licenses at the 50% discounted rate. The fonts used in my resources are from: Babbling Abby and Kimberly Geswein Fonts The clip art used in my resources is from: Krista Wallden Creative Clips and Whimsy Clips ________________________________________ writing | persuasive | expository | convince | persuasive tools | classroom | bundle | English | literacy | literature | warm up | reflection | text | reading | extension | alliteration | emotive language | groups of three | inclusive language | draft | rubric | no prep | printable | homework | teacher | booklet | learning tool | elementary school | primary school | homeschooling | homeschool
Paragraph writing is a big challenge for many students. This post includes a step-by-step method to help your students write great paragraphs in no time.
It's impossible to figure out how to outline any one aspect of your story in isolation. Instead, learn 3 ways to "bob and weave" from one to the next.
Does your child struggle with Dysgraphia? There are many ways to help them improve their writing. Tools and strategies to help a child with dysgraphia at home.
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Need to know how to help students write summaries? These lesson ideas and summarizing ideas and tips for the upper elementary classroom will help you teach summarizing and help your students write summaries as they read.
How to set up a writing planner and ideas on what to include in it to help you stay inspired and organized while writing a novel.
I love my job. I really, really do! One of the favorite parts about my job is that I get to network with a whole bunch of very talented teachers. I love hearing about and seeing them implement creative strategies to improve student learning. During the past several years, many of our local school districts have focused on improving writing instruction. All of […]
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Emotions exist in the body- but how? This printable emotion sensation feeling wheel helps individuals match common emotions with the physical sensations that most often match those feelings.
I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!
It is true that many writers won't emphasize on outlining a novel. After all, they write fascinating books without outlines. But, the importance of detailing the outline for your novel is enormous.
What is the best way to start writing a book after you've got a story idea? Read this post to find out how to start your novel-writing process.
Learn how to create a story outline that will ensure that you finish your draft without running into the dreaded writer's block.
A magic system is a set of rules, however strict or loose, that govern magic in a fictional world.
What is the Zettelkasten method? Can it help you organise your notes? How can you use a Zettelkasten to write fiction or non-fiction?
Tips, techniques, and tactics to take an idea and turn it into story. Includes several pre-writing methods and a free workbook.
Here are 8 videos that focus on teaching students college basics, writing, literature, & multimedia. Multiple free tools are also discussed!
Engaging teaching strategies and learning resources for middle school ELA and high school English students.
The biggest gap between a student's attempt at writing a personal narrative and a fictional narrative is a really strong character. ...
Say goodbye to the struggle of username creation and unlock a world of limitless possibilities with our AI-powered Aesthetic Username Generator.
Effectively teach historical thinking skills and writing using an argument qualifier continuum line.
Teaching essay writing to students can be tricky, especially for reluctant learners. Read 10 Ways to Make Essay Writing Less Stressful and More Successful
Feeling inspired? This writing prompts you can find the joy of write, every page has a sentence and you can start writing. Happy writing 90 Writing Prompts
Use these brand new 8th-grade writing prompts to help your students prepare for the coming year and stay focused on all the challenges that lie ahead.
Here's a Scrivener template for my Master Beat Sheet, which combines the Save the Cat Beat Sheet and my Story Engineering Beat Sheet.
April is National Poetry Month, and what better time is there to teach and explore poetry with your students?!?! I love to spend the month of April having students read, write, and share poetry in our classroom. At the beginning of my poetry units each year, I find that my students are often intimidated by poetry, especially when it comes to writing it. Over the years I have tried to find the perfect activities to ease them into writing their own poems. One of my favorite activities is taking my students on a Haiku Hike!! Several years ago I found this book, Haiku Hike from Scholastic. The story and poems in this book were written by a class of 4th grade students. The idea behind the book is that the students in this class went on a nature walk, and instead of taking pictures of the different things they saw, they used the form of haiku to capture different moments and scenes in nature. I loved this idea so much that I decided to implement it in my own classroom. Here’s how it works... What is Haiku? Before you take students on a Haiku Hike, you will need to make sure that they are familiar with this poetic form. Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry that is often used to describe nature or the seasons. Haiku is a three line poem that follows a specific pattern based on syllables: Line #1: 5 syllables Line #2: 7 syllables Line #3: 5 syllables I would suggest creating an anchor chart to discuss and display the elements of Haiku. Take a Hike! Once your students are familiar with Haiku, they are ready for their Haiku Hike. You could schedule a hike or nature walk as a mini field trip, but I simply take my students on a walk around the grounds of our school. Students take “field notes” throughout the hike. I ask them to take notes about what they see, hear, and feel, and encourage them to be as descriptive as possible. I also ask them to try to capture a moment in time or a scene in nature. Below is a page you can provide for students to record their field notes. Click HERE to download this FREEBIE!! Time to Write Once you return from your hike, it is time for students to turn their field notes into haiku. Ask them to write two to three poems based on their experiences and observations. They can write these drafts in a writer’s notebook or journal. Have students share their poems with you and their classmates for feedback. Then have them choose a final haiku to publish. Since students are using haiku to “capture” a scene or moment in time, you can have them use the Polaroid page below to record and illustrate their haiku. This page is also included in the free download!! These “snapshots” make a beautiful bulletin board for students to display their haiku!! This activity is the perfect way to ease students into writing their own haiku. It gets them outside to observe their environment. What better way to inspire nature themed poems, than going outdoors to explore?!?! If you are looking for more poetry activities, check out this blog post on my blog, Create Teach Share. You can also check out my Poetry Toolbox in my Teacher Shop!!
In this post, I break down how I approach teaching literary analysis writing to my students in an introductory children's literature course.
This creative collection of writing prompts for middle school offers a diverse range of ideas to spark imagination and creativity!
Hi bloggy friends! Here's a quick post with two freebies for you. The first is what I called "Spooky Suffixes." We used these in a literacy center and the kiddos basically played Concentration with the cards. You could easily use the cards to play Suffix Go Fish or just a simple matching game. Spooky Suffixes The next is a graphic organizer that I typed for my students to use with the Someone, Wanted, But, So, Then Summarizing Strategy. I was introduced to this strategy by Kathy Bumgardner (http://kbumreading.com/) six or so years ago and it's the best thing I've found to help my students summarize fiction stories. Some of my students don't need the actual organizer and create their own but others benefit from the help of the premade organizer. Hopefully, some of your kiddos can use it too! Summarizing OrganizerIf you download either document, please leave a quick comment on how you plan to use (or even improve on my idea). I love to hear feedback! Thanks and have a terrific week!
There's a lot of things that you need to consider when writing stories. You can use any of these story outline templates to create a good piece of work.
Assessment of ESL students does not have to be complicated. Here is a short overview of Bloom's taxonomy, what assessment is and ideas for ESL assessment.
This model and template will help college, high school, and middle school teachers put together a syllabus that sets you and your students up for a great year.
