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Dear Colleague,
How can you help students to write with voice? Allow them to choose their own topics. When students write about topics they care about, they tend to write with more enthusiasm, authenticity, and attention to quality details. Their voices shine through.
Happy writing!
P.S. To read more about moving away from prompts and allowing students to choose their own topics go here.
Lessons on how to help students find their own topics are included in No More "I'm Done!" Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades. You can view the entire text online here. |
Feelings Included
On Hand: An expressive phrase from a story you've read, such as "Where is all this going to end?" from Brave Charlotte by Anu Stohner (2005), "I think I can"" from The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper (1978)
Mini-Lesson: Ask students to take turns saying the phrase using the following voices: angry, sad, silly, whiny, happy, frustrated, serious, confused, and so on.
Tell students that adding feelings to writing often adds heaps of voice. Remind them that the words around the phrase -the details the author includes - helps us to know how to read a phrase, and how the character (or in some cases the author) is feeling.
Extension: Invite students who have done a good job in expressing feeling in their writing to share a favorite sentence during tomorrow's mini-lesson.
Adapted fromNo More "I'm Done!" Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades by Jennifer Richard Jacobson |
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To hear an excerpt of Andy Shane and The Very Bossy Dolores Starbuckle in audiobook format (and to read a review) go here. |
for primary teachers
