Writing Lessons
Wouldn't some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?
What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?
Let's go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?
Read three pieces of writing from three different robots about the same beautiful painting of a volcano. Who wrote it best?
One painting of ruins. Three robots. Three pieces of writing. Who wrote it best?
One painting of a bridge. Three robots. Who wrote it best?
Read three pieces of writing from three different robots based on a beautiful painting and decide who wins!
What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?
Click up an interesting, visual writing prompt suitable for any grade or purpose.
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Let's write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!
Students will look closely at this old image and write a short, structured poem.
Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item's point of view.
Students will create a pretty darn interesting poem about Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons.
Students will create a surprisingly good poem based on Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Get your students writing some pretty darn impressive poetry based on Japan's most famous artist.
Students will look closely at a piece of art and then write a structured poem about it.
Students will write about a beautiful painting from Frederic Edwin Church.
Let's start with "As cold as fire."
What if we started a sentence with the simile?
Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.
Students will read three paragraphs about the same topic, decide what makes each one different, and then create a super-paragraph!
Students will read three paragraphs about the same topic, decide what makes each one different, and then create a super-paragraph!
Students will read three paragraphs about the same topic, decide what makes each one different, and then create a super-paragraph!
Students will read three paragraphs about the same topic, decide what makes each one different, and then create a super-paragraph!
Students will read three paragraphs about the same topic, decide what makes each one different, and then create a super-paragraph!
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?
What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?
Rather than just demand that students "write clearly," we'll explore the hazards of poorly written sentences… and maybe create one of our own!
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!
Is your students' use of repetition limited to, "The girl was very, very, very fast."? Let's borrow some ideas from Shakespeare!
Upgrade compare and contrast writing with just a couple of key words.
We'll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.
What if... Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?
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.
We tell students to "show, not tell" in their writing, but this advice isn't effective until they experience the difference. In this video, we'll put a famous character (of students' choosing) into a mundane situation and develop a fun scene to show off their main traits.
What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?
Dig into the common elements of the fantasy genre.
Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!
We'll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with gerunds, participle phrases, and absolute phrases.
We'll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.
"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.
Let's write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.
Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…
We'll start with the cliché "as cold as ice" and go somewhere much more interesting.
Can you write directions so clear that a group of kids can put a toy together with no illustrations?
Ever read a student's story that was just event after event after event and then a very sudden ending? They lack an understanding of a plot's structure. With the help of Finding Nemo, I break down how to set up a well-structured plot.
If your students' stories are packed with endless ninja fights or arguments between frenemies, it's time to expose them to a wider range of conflicts.
A typical student narrative includes plot and characters but lacks a larger idea to hold it all together. This is where a lesson on themes comes in…
We open our unit on narrative writing with a big idea: "structure increases creativity." I show how this is true by bringing in examples from across all disciplines.
Are students' characters a bit flat? Archetypes give them a strong foundation on which to build their own characters as well as a tool to analyze existing stories.