TEKS ELA Standard: 4.10.D

Author’s Voice: Jack London

Every great author sounds like no one else. Students learn to hear an author’s voice with Charles Dickens’s dramatic A Christmas Carol, then borrow Jack London’s rugged voice, turning a flat, boring passage into writing that sounds just like him. It is reading like a writer, and it is the kind of thinking your strongest readers are hungry for.

smoke-breathing Godzilla tree

Jingle Bells on Wrenches

Extreme Closeup in Slow Motion

Blue Flames of Kawah Ijen Volcano

uses bioluminescence to glow

bales of hay get into the Halloween spirit

astonishing shot of a dust storm

sit on a dandelion

surreal woolen carpets

closeup of a guitar’s strings vibrating

Red Hot Cannonball in Water

“plays” a steel table like an instrument

insects take off

pancakes that look like bacon and eggs

unbelievable BMX stunts

Yellow River meets the sea

Starling Murmurations

a rainbow effect called iridiscence

carves the most delicate patterns

the strange Fingal’s Cave

Lake Michigan Ice Breaking Away

shows off some of the techniques they used

Blanket Octopus unfurl its colorful skin

Banana Juggling by Joseph Viatte

lake as a musical instrument

a familiar Van Gogh scene

blend into its surroundings

That’s some impressive camouflage

played while submerged in water

Glass Armonica

Canon in D by Train Horns

Time-Lapse Volcano Eruption

Liquid Mercury Balloon in Slow Motion

A Mirror Made Entirely Out of Fur

Swimming Through a Lake of Jellyfish

Super Specific Similes – Slimy Broccoli

Start with a basic simile. Now make it more specific. Now even more. Watch how much better writing gets with each round.

Super Specific Similes: Loud Class

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

Fancier Figurative Language: Use the Opposite

Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”

Fancier Figurative Language: Move the Simile

What if we started a sentence with the simile?

Doubling Up Writing: Anadiplosis

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

Writing Technique: Opposite Adjectives

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

Writing Sample: The Jungle Book (Bagheera)

A passage from The Jungle Book to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Fancier Figurative Language: Advanced Repetition

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

Advanced Alliteration and Consonance

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.

Writing Sample: The Wind in the Willows

A passage from The Wind in the Willows to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Writing Sample: Moby Dick

A passage from Moby Dick to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Writing Sample: The Fall of the House of Usher

A passage from “The Fall of the House of Usher” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Writing Sample: Anne of Green Gables

An intriguing passage from Anne of Green Gables to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

What’s In My Brain: Cute Baby vs Fast Cheetah

Can students spot similes vs metaphors?

Describing Author’s Voice

What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?