Writing Techniques

“Add more variety!” I’d say to my class. But I never really knew what this actually meant. Suprise! This bad advice never improved students’ writing. In these videos, students learn nine specific ways to add variety just by changing the beginning of their sentences. This was easily one of my students’ favorite writing tools – because it actually helped them.

In a sentence, punctuation may seem meek when compared to those mighty words, but punctuation has incredible power over the meaning of a sentence. Students will try re-punctuating sentences to find new meanings – without changing a single word!

We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.

What happens when we switch out a “but” with a “so”? An “and” with a “for”? How can such tiny words make such big differences?

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.

What happens when a pronoun could refer to more than one noun? Big problems!

When students learn about alliteration, it’s hard to steer them away from goofy tongue-twisters. Certainly, there must be more powerful and practical ways of using alliteration. In this lesson, I draw on delicious examples from Shakespeare to show how a very advanced writer used alliteration. Then, I break those ideas down so students can try them out.

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with gerunds, participle phrases, and absolute phrases.

Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”

Rather than just demand that students “write clearly,” we’ll explore the hazards of poorly written sentences… and maybe create one of our own!

What if we started a sentence with the simile?

In this lesson, students will not just fix passive sentences, but break active sentences as they learn to put the star of the sentence first.

Can your students help The Bard? We’ll fix five Shakespearean run-ons in three different ways.

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be contrasting two ideas using synonyms.

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be writing sentences with three dependent clauses.

Is your students’ use of repetition limited to, “The girl was very, very, very fast.”? Let’s borrow some ideas from Shakespeare!

Let’s take a starting phrase about St. Patrick’s Day and get specific. No, even more specific!

Repeating words can be what you want, if what you want is an interesting effect. (Psst, that’s an example of anadiplosis!)

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be using antonyms to describe the same topic!

Let’s make this simile about a quick baby even more specific.

Have students mastered the art of anadiplosis: ending one sentence with the beginning of the next? Now it’s time to take it to the next level!

Students will make this slimy broccoli simile seriously specific.

Let’s make this simile about a strong uncle even more specific.

Let’s make this simile about a loud class super specific!

Students will make this simile about stinky seaweed super specific.

Let’s help William Shakespeare with his use of repetition.