When targeting visualization, have students show you their thinking by drawing their mental pictures. After teaching and modeling the skill, then guide students through it in small groups, and then let them practice visualization within a listening station.

The station procedures would include:

1. Listen to an audio text without following along in the printed text.
2. At the end of the audio book, draw an illustration that represents the action that happened/information that was learned. (Older students could draw while listening to the text. The activity could produce multiple illustrations/visualizations.)
3. Listen to the audio book a second time with the printed text. Compare the illustrator's images to the student's visualizations.

Having students write sentences for content-area vocabulary can result in regurgitated definitions and trite statements that don't demonstrate their thinking and understanding. Spice up the traditional sentence-writing activity with a few of these more challenging tasks.  

1. Use the term in a 2-3 sentence note/text to a friend. 
2. Create a dialogue between 2 content-area experts using at least 3 vocabulary words.
3. Write a sentence including a simile or metaphor about a vocabulary term.
4. In 2-3 sentences, explain how three terms are connected or related. 
5. Use one of the vocabulary words in a question with another term as the answer.

Click here for more ways to create sentences to review content-area vocabulary. 

Ramp-up the fun factor when students are topic-brainstorming for their next research paper, persuasive writing, or argumentative piece. Students can compile possible topics using Desktop Graffiti.

Make paper table cloths by placing butcher-block/bulletin board paper overtop clusters of student desks. Small groups look through magazines and cut out words, headlines, and photos that are on controversial, political, and social topics appropriate for the expository assignment.  

Here are some tips to make the activity more efficient:

• Provide a wide assortment of magazines--news, sports, teen, family, animals, hunting, etc. And have enough magazines so that all students can be looking for potential topics.
• Have enough magazines/newspapers so you have a second batch of materials you can pull out after the first several classes. The resources will be pretty picked over by then.
• You'll need LOTS of tape, glue sticks, and scissors! With enough of each, all students can be looking, cutting, and taping/gluing.
• Make a mini-graffiti poster as an example to better explain the task.
• Mark the TOP and BOTTOM of each chart paper so that when students adhere items, they understand how the paper will hang. It's hard to read it if it's written or taped upside down on butcher paper. 
• Plan where you are going to hang the graffiti papers. They will require some space in your classroom environment.
• Start the Desktop Graffiti posters in first period and allow each class period to add to what the previous periods started. At the end of the day, you'll have a handful of colorful collages full of expository possibilities. Students will love this active brainstorming strategy! 

While teaching the differences between literal and figurative language, South Creek Elementary Nadine Gilkison (Indianapolis, IN) had her fourth graders dress up in idiom costumes for their Fall Party at the end of October.  

Nadine sent home a parent letter explaining the project. The letter included an excerpt from Fabulously Funny Idiom Plays, which features a glossary of idiom phrases and their meanings.   

• Idiom: get the ball rolling

Idiomatic meaning: start something

Sentence: At first the party was a dud,  

but then we put on some music, and that got the ball rolling. 

To spice things up a little more, Nadine had students keep their idiom costumes a secret. Classmates had the whole day to figure out what their peers were dressed as. The student who guessed the most idioms right, won! Love it!

Besides dressing up as idioms, Nadine had her fourth graders create A-Z Idiom books. Check out these two examples. What a great way to help students use their new understanding of idioms in their own writing!

One component to targeting voice-filled writing is to hone students' understanding of point of view. Several teachers have shared successful strategies they've tried and are willing to share with you. Check these out! 

• Kelly Garant, a second grade teacher at Flint Lake Elementary School (Valparaiso, IN) encourages voice with letters to Mr. Turkey --before they eat him! 

• Sherri Armstrong, teacher at Honey Creek Middle School (Terre Haute, IN), challenges her students to write a traditional obituary and a nontraditional obituary after showing them a sample of each one.    

• Fifth grade teacher Paulette Sipe from Thompson Elementary School (Walton, IN) read "The Worst Day Ever" (her own modeled example). After reading the apple-eating piece, she asked students to write to the following prompt: You are a pumpkin being carved. Write a descriptive story about your transformation from a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. 

• Homan Elementary first grade teacher Melody Wolff (Schererville, IN) had her students create a 3-D ghost. (If you put gauze in starch, it dries hard and maintains its form.) After creating the ghastly characters, the students then wrote as if they were the ghosts. What a creative way to practice point of view skills with primary students!