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Ten Quick Mini-Lessons
1. Ask each student to bring a picture book to the meeting area. Suggest pairs examine the books for the trait you are studying. What do they think of the beginning? The ending? Can they find a vivid verb? A sentence that sounds lovely to the ear?
2. Write a few sentences on the board that lack the trait you are studying. Ask students for suggestions on how to revise. Make the changes. Be sure to cross off, use carets, use arrows. Do not erase.
3. Invite a student who revised his or her writing to co-teach the mini-lesson. Ask the student to read the work as originally written. Then have the student read the revised version. Ask, "Why did you make these changes?"
4. Display a photograph. With your students, write a paragraph in which you include as many quality details from the picture as appropriate. Which detail is most interesting and why?
5. Ask a colleague for a writing sample from his or her class. Project the writing without the author's name. Ask students to assess the writing with one trait in mind. (If appropriate, provide rubrics for your student to use while assessing.)
6. Draw a T-chart. Then reread a favorite picture book. Ask students to stop you when they notice author craft. On the left-hand side of the chart, record the author's words, on the right-hand side, write the technique the author is using.
7. Grab a well-written passage from a picture book (fiction or non-fiction) and ask students to rewrite it without quality details. For example, this passage from Kay Winters' Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loves Books:
The family kept the woodpile stacked.
The blazing fire
scared off wild animals
that roamed the woods.
Bears growled,
wolves howled,
panthers screamed.
Abe shivered.
Dark was a fearsome time.
would become:
The family built fires to keep animals away. Abe was scared of the wild animals.
Discuss the power of quality details.
8. Read a nonfiction passage. Ask, what keeps this paragraph from being boring?
9. Brainstorm synonyms for strong verbs on a continuum. For example:
>>slog, trudge, saunter, stroll, march, stride, skip, jog, race, sprint>>
10. Model focussing a topic. Choose a topic such as "My Dog." Explain that you want to write a focussed piece, one that doesn't list. With students, brainstorm lots of possible focuses. Your list might look like this:
1. How and where my dog sleeps
2. Tricks I have taught my dog
3. The day my dog chased a ground hog
4. How my dog behaves (or misbehaves) in the car
5. Why I chose a Jack Russell Terrier.
Then choose a focus from your list. Write your piece during Quiet 10 and share it the next day.
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