Lesson:
I spent the first part of the class period teaching the students different ways of starting sentences to add variety to their paragraphs. For this, I used Andrew Pudewa's material from his Institute for Excellence in Writing, with a little bit of grammatical explanation for the older students.
Sentence Openers:
Subject: typical "the noun verbed" format
The happy children played all day.
Prepositional: prepositional phrase
At the park, the happy children played all day.
"ly": adverb
Happily, the children played at the park all day.
"ing": participle or participial phrase
Laughing with delight, the happy children played at the park all day.
Clausal: dependent clause beginning with when, while, where, as, if, since, although
Since it was summer vacation, the happy children played at the park all day.
After that, Mrs. Arbogast read aloud the student compositions describing persons. The paragraphs were well done and the students enjoyed them immensely.
Assignment:
Students will write another paragraph describing a person. They are to include a good variety of sentence openers as we discussed.
(I would have preferred to move on to a different type of writing, but I thought it too much for the students to learn two new lessons at once.)
Showing posts with label Descriptive Paragraphs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Descriptive Paragraphs. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
4th - 6th Writing, November 7
Lesson:
We spent most of this class period reading aloud the place descriptions the students had written, matching them up with the photos that inspired them. The students were successful in that their classmates were easily able to match the correct image to its corresponding description. In fact, I thought they did a fabulous job, especially with the similes, metaphors, and personification I had asked them to include. I was pleased and impressed.
We also discussed how to describe a person. All that we learned in our previous lessons will still apply, of course, including vivid word choice, strong sensory details, and so on. More than that, I hope the students will be able to imbue personality in their descriptions. As I told them, we want to 'meet' a person, not read an autopsy report.
As we discussed the best ways to convey someone's unique personality, the class came up with wonderful ideas that were exactly right. In particular, in addition to straightforward physical descriptions, the students decided to focus attention on:
eyes (sad, kind, twinkling, tired, etc.)
mouth (smiling, frowning, scowling, laughing easily, etc.)
facial expressions
hand gestures
body language (posture, style of walk, etc.)
personal choices (grooming, clothing choice, etc)
We concluded by reading aloud two example descriptions, one of Jo from Little Women, and one of Mr. Lorry from Tale of Two Cities.
Assignment:
Students are to write a descriptive paragraph of a person. Their description is to be both accurate and kind, bearing in mind the feelings of others. They are NOT to make a story or report of it --- just straight description, with as much detail and life as they can muster.
We spent most of this class period reading aloud the place descriptions the students had written, matching them up with the photos that inspired them. The students were successful in that their classmates were easily able to match the correct image to its corresponding description. In fact, I thought they did a fabulous job, especially with the similes, metaphors, and personification I had asked them to include. I was pleased and impressed.
We also discussed how to describe a person. All that we learned in our previous lessons will still apply, of course, including vivid word choice, strong sensory details, and so on. More than that, I hope the students will be able to imbue personality in their descriptions. As I told them, we want to 'meet' a person, not read an autopsy report.
As we discussed the best ways to convey someone's unique personality, the class came up with wonderful ideas that were exactly right. In particular, in addition to straightforward physical descriptions, the students decided to focus attention on:
eyes (sad, kind, twinkling, tired, etc.)
mouth (smiling, frowning, scowling, laughing easily, etc.)
facial expressions
hand gestures
body language (posture, style of walk, etc.)
personal choices (grooming, clothing choice, etc)
We concluded by reading aloud two example descriptions, one of Jo from Little Women, and one of Mr. Lorry from Tale of Two Cities.
Assignment:
Students are to write a descriptive paragraph of a person. Their description is to be both accurate and kind, bearing in mind the feelings of others. They are NOT to make a story or report of it --- just straight description, with as much detail and life as they can muster.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
4th - 6th Writing, October 17
Lesson:
I am thrilled with how well this class is learning! They are so enthusiastic about their writing, and their interest and effort are producing wonderful results. Their compositions show marked improvement every week as they apply their new lesson.
We opened class with a brief review of basics we have covered so far:
Clear communication
expressed in a lively way (vivid word choice, use of senses and emotion)
in correct paragraph form
with sensible organization
and sentence variety. (We will work more on this.)
We then spent some time explaining what we are seeking in the next assignment, which is a place description. I provided large color landscape pictures taken from calendars, from which students could choose their favorite. I asked the students to think about how many photos a photographer might take to get one great shot, and why he or she might have chosen that particular photo instead of another one. In other words, what is interesting, unusual, or special about this photo? Where is its drama? That is what we want to capture.
Like description in general, students will need first to observe the place in question, using as many of the five senses as apply. The difference, for most students, is that they must do this in their imaginations. I asked them to pretend they were in the location of their photo:
What do they see? Shapes, sizes, colors, textures? What colors? (Choose color names like those in the 64-crayon box, not the 8-crayon box.)
What might they feel around them? Soft, warm breezes? Hot, heavy stillness? Cool frosty chill? Piercing bitter cold?
What might they hear? Spring leaves rustling gently, autumn leaves crunching crisply? Songbirds lilting, seabirds cawing? Bees buzzing, crickets chirping, toads thrumming? Thunder clashing, waterfalls crashing, mountain streams splashing? Surf pounding? Silent stillness resounding?
What might they smell? Fresh air after a rain? Fragrant flowers in full bloom? Dry, windblown dust? Damp sea air?
What might they taste? Any notable taste in the air? (Though unlikely in most landscape settings, taste might factor in scenes full of dust, sand, or salt water.)
What movement might take place? Ripe grain heads bobbing and bowing in the wind? Water cascading downstream? Lightning flashing across the sky? (Motion helps to add life, so include it if appropriate.)
What overall mood prevails? Calm and peaceful? Stormy and foreboding? Lonely? Awestruck? Joyous? Powerful? Majestic? Welcoming? Comforting? Hostile? (Choose descriptive words that fit the mood.)
In selecting descriptive phrases, students should make the effort to include at least one, preferably two, instances of the following figures of speech:
Simile --- a comparison using the words "like" or "as"
"My love is like a red, red rose . . ." Robert Burns
Metaphor --- a comparison without using the words "like" or as"
"Love is a rose . . ." Neil Young
Personification --- ascribing aspects of personhood or personality to inanimate objects
"Love is blind . . ." William Shakespeare
As they 'observe' their setting, students might jot down their ideas and comments as we have done for previous paragraphs. From those notes, students can filter, edit, combine, and eliminate details to choose what they wish to include. They will then need to organize their select observations in a physical order that makes sense for the scene they are framing: top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, right to left, panorama to zoomed-in close-up, focused detail to wide-pan vista. Their words will guide the reader's eye.
With those details in order, students will proceed with the normal writing process. They will compose a catchy topic sentence, an effective conclusion, and an intriguing title. They will join sentences together using transition expressions, creating sentence variety with opening phrases and clauses. [We will continue to cover this more.] After a "breather" period, students will go back to edit and polish their work to their satisfaction, then prepare a smooth final version.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After explaining that lesson, we rounded out the class session by reading aloud some of the object descriptions the students had written the previous week. Many students brought to class the object under examination, so their classmates enjoyed matching the description to the actual item.
Assignment:
Each student will compose a paragraph describing a natural landscape, as described above. Most students will use the calendar pictures I provided, which they will return when they hand in their homework. A few will choose another familiar landscape, but should bring in a photo for the class to view. As we read the paragraphs aloud during our next session, the class will try to match up the photos with their descriptions.
These papers are to be pure description, not narratives. Students are not to make up stories to superimpose upon the settings.
This assignment will be due October 31. Class will not meet next week,October 24.
With an extra week available, some students may choose to write a longer paper this time, or even to write two papers. That is an extra-credit option, but is not required.
I am thrilled with how well this class is learning! They are so enthusiastic about their writing, and their interest and effort are producing wonderful results. Their compositions show marked improvement every week as they apply their new lesson.
We opened class with a brief review of basics we have covered so far:
Clear communication
expressed in a lively way (vivid word choice, use of senses and emotion)
in correct paragraph form
with sensible organization
and sentence variety. (We will work more on this.)
We then spent some time explaining what we are seeking in the next assignment, which is a place description. I provided large color landscape pictures taken from calendars, from which students could choose their favorite. I asked the students to think about how many photos a photographer might take to get one great shot, and why he or she might have chosen that particular photo instead of another one. In other words, what is interesting, unusual, or special about this photo? Where is its drama? That is what we want to capture.
Like description in general, students will need first to observe the place in question, using as many of the five senses as apply. The difference, for most students, is that they must do this in their imaginations. I asked them to pretend they were in the location of their photo:
What do they see? Shapes, sizes, colors, textures? What colors? (Choose color names like those in the 64-crayon box, not the 8-crayon box.)
What might they feel around them? Soft, warm breezes? Hot, heavy stillness? Cool frosty chill? Piercing bitter cold?
What might they hear? Spring leaves rustling gently, autumn leaves crunching crisply? Songbirds lilting, seabirds cawing? Bees buzzing, crickets chirping, toads thrumming? Thunder clashing, waterfalls crashing, mountain streams splashing? Surf pounding? Silent stillness resounding?
What might they smell? Fresh air after a rain? Fragrant flowers in full bloom? Dry, windblown dust? Damp sea air?
What might they taste? Any notable taste in the air? (Though unlikely in most landscape settings, taste might factor in scenes full of dust, sand, or salt water.)
What movement might take place? Ripe grain heads bobbing and bowing in the wind? Water cascading downstream? Lightning flashing across the sky? (Motion helps to add life, so include it if appropriate.)
What overall mood prevails? Calm and peaceful? Stormy and foreboding? Lonely? Awestruck? Joyous? Powerful? Majestic? Welcoming? Comforting? Hostile? (Choose descriptive words that fit the mood.)
In selecting descriptive phrases, students should make the effort to include at least one, preferably two, instances of the following figures of speech:
Simile --- a comparison using the words "like" or "as"
"My love is like a red, red rose . . ." Robert Burns
Metaphor --- a comparison without using the words "like" or as"
"Love is a rose . . ." Neil Young
Personification --- ascribing aspects of personhood or personality to inanimate objects
"Love is blind . . ." William Shakespeare
As they 'observe' their setting, students might jot down their ideas and comments as we have done for previous paragraphs. From those notes, students can filter, edit, combine, and eliminate details to choose what they wish to include. They will then need to organize their select observations in a physical order that makes sense for the scene they are framing: top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, right to left, panorama to zoomed-in close-up, focused detail to wide-pan vista. Their words will guide the reader's eye.
With those details in order, students will proceed with the normal writing process. They will compose a catchy topic sentence, an effective conclusion, and an intriguing title. They will join sentences together using transition expressions, creating sentence variety with opening phrases and clauses. [We will continue to cover this more.] After a "breather" period, students will go back to edit and polish their work to their satisfaction, then prepare a smooth final version.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After explaining that lesson, we rounded out the class session by reading aloud some of the object descriptions the students had written the previous week. Many students brought to class the object under examination, so their classmates enjoyed matching the description to the actual item.
Assignment:
Each student will compose a paragraph describing a natural landscape, as described above. Most students will use the calendar pictures I provided, which they will return when they hand in their homework. A few will choose another familiar landscape, but should bring in a photo for the class to view. As we read the paragraphs aloud during our next session, the class will try to match up the photos with their descriptions.
These papers are to be pure description, not narratives. Students are not to make up stories to superimpose upon the settings.
This assignment will be due October 31. Class will not meet next week,October 24.
With an extra week available, some students may choose to write a longer paper this time, or even to write two papers. That is an extra-credit option, but is not required.
Friday, October 10, 2008
4th - 6th Writing, October 10
Lesson:
We spent the first part of the class reviewing some basic ideas:
~ Collect your good ideas and put them into the correct paragraph form.
~ Make that paragraph easy for the reader to understand and follow by clear, logical organization that leads your reader along with you step-by-step from intro to conclusion.
~ Keep that well-organized paragraph lively and interesting to your reader by choosing vivid action verbs and strong descriptions that evoke the senses, motion, and emotion.
~ Add even more readability to your interesting paragraph by using a variety of ways to begin different sentences.
We added There is, There are, It is, and similar expressions to our no-no list as legal but weak ways to begin sentences.
To help organize and add variety to sentences, I provided each student with a sheet of transition expressions. These transitions are organized into groups that can be used to show time, location, similarities, differences, and so on, so that students can easily choose words that suit their method of organization for any writing project. We will be discussing more about using these transition words skillfully in the coming weeks, especially as we begin to emphasize sentence variety.
Up until now, most of our early writing assignments have been narratives, organized in chronological(time) order. Now we are switching to descriptive papers for a few weeks, with details organized in spatial (place) order. I told the class to imagine they are movie directors, deciding how the camera will reveal their object on screen. Will they choose to start at the top and work down? Start at the bottom and work up? Start out with a general shot and then zoom in for a close-up? Start with close focus on some small detail and then pan out to an overview? As directors, they decide what will work best. All I ask is that they be consistent,not jumping all around but rather flowing smoothly through their description, using transition expressions to guide the reader's mind like a movie camera guides the filmgoer's eye.
Next, we talked about preparing to write a description of a physical object by first spending some time observing that object using as many of the five sense as we can, really paying attention to what we can discover as we jot down our observations on our brainstorming mind maps. I showed some example objects to the class as we talked together about how we might describe the colors, textures, and so on.
To wrap up, we read aloud a few student papers, commenting on the good features, suggesting one way the authors could now use what we are learning about transitions and sentence variety to make their next papers even better.
Assignment:
Each student will write an interesting, well-organized paragraph describing a physical object. This may be any individual tangible item: a sea shell, rock, figurine, banana, apple, orange, baseball, soccer net, basketball hoop, old shoe, tea cup, candlestick, --- almost anything. We will be describing places and people later, so I do not want students to tackle those yet. A few students asked about describing pets; that is acceptable as long as the paragraph is limited to physical description, not behavior or personality. It might be easier, though, to choose an inanimate object.
Students should incorporate all we have learned, with special effort to incorporate some appropriate transitions and some sentence variety.
We spent the first part of the class reviewing some basic ideas:
~ Collect your good ideas and put them into the correct paragraph form.
~ Make that paragraph easy for the reader to understand and follow by clear, logical organization that leads your reader along with you step-by-step from intro to conclusion.
~ Keep that well-organized paragraph lively and interesting to your reader by choosing vivid action verbs and strong descriptions that evoke the senses, motion, and emotion.
~ Add even more readability to your interesting paragraph by using a variety of ways to begin different sentences.
We added There is, There are, It is, and similar expressions to our no-no list as legal but weak ways to begin sentences.
To help organize and add variety to sentences, I provided each student with a sheet of transition expressions. These transitions are organized into groups that can be used to show time, location, similarities, differences, and so on, so that students can easily choose words that suit their method of organization for any writing project. We will be discussing more about using these transition words skillfully in the coming weeks, especially as we begin to emphasize sentence variety.
Up until now, most of our early writing assignments have been narratives, organized in chronological(time) order. Now we are switching to descriptive papers for a few weeks, with details organized in spatial (place) order. I told the class to imagine they are movie directors, deciding how the camera will reveal their object on screen. Will they choose to start at the top and work down? Start at the bottom and work up? Start out with a general shot and then zoom in for a close-up? Start with close focus on some small detail and then pan out to an overview? As directors, they decide what will work best. All I ask is that they be consistent,not jumping all around but rather flowing smoothly through their description, using transition expressions to guide the reader's mind like a movie camera guides the filmgoer's eye.
Next, we talked about preparing to write a description of a physical object by first spending some time observing that object using as many of the five sense as we can, really paying attention to what we can discover as we jot down our observations on our brainstorming mind maps. I showed some example objects to the class as we talked together about how we might describe the colors, textures, and so on.
To wrap up, we read aloud a few student papers, commenting on the good features, suggesting one way the authors could now use what we are learning about transitions and sentence variety to make their next papers even better.
Assignment:
Each student will write an interesting, well-organized paragraph describing a physical object. This may be any individual tangible item: a sea shell, rock, figurine, banana, apple, orange, baseball, soccer net, basketball hoop, old shoe, tea cup, candlestick, --- almost anything. We will be describing places and people later, so I do not want students to tackle those yet. A few students asked about describing pets; that is acceptable as long as the paragraph is limited to physical description, not behavior or personality. It might be easier, though, to choose an inanimate object.
Students should incorporate all we have learned, with special effort to incorporate some appropriate transitions and some sentence variety.
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