Author Laurie Halse Anderson discusses her writing process

Clean Copies of Memoirs on Monday

Make sure you have clean copies of your memoirs ready to revise on Monday.

Side note: Does anyone know what type of figurative language I used in the title of this post?  

Clean Copies of Memoirs on Monday

Memoir Reflections

What does your voice sound like?

Let's talk about writing. You are talented writers. You have shown that in your writing this year. I want us to take the next step now.

What makes one essay different from another? We all had the same rubric, so why didn't they all sound the same?

The reason they didn't all sound the same is because you all have a different voice. We have voices when speak and we also have voices when we write.

Be metacognative with me for a bit. What does your writing voice sound like? What makes your writing different from others'? How do you let our voice be heard in your writing?

Journal Topic 9/4/09

Any big plans for the long weekend? If not, what do you wish you were doing?

Have a great weekend!

Journal Topic: 9/2/09

In one paragraph, describe a scene from any sport. Include these words:

• bounced
• struggled
• spied
• roared
• collapsed
• giggled
  

From: Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises that Are NOT Personal, NOT Introspective, NOT Boring!

Descriptive Writing

Today in Language Arts, students wrote descriptive paragraphs about something in our classroom. The goal was for them to be specific enough that the the "something" could be guessed, but vague enough that we wouldn't be able to guess it on the first few guesses. Because of shortened schedule, we won't have time to guess them today, but you can ask your student to read it to you and attempt to guess what it could be yourself!

Journal Topic 9/1/09

How many ways can you find to say no? Write ten sentences that say no in various ways, but without using the word no.

From: Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises that Are NOT Personal, NOT Introspective, NOT Boring!

Toy Paragraph

Students in Language Arts (I think their schedules call it English, but I must be old school; it'll always be Language Arts to me) have been writing Toy Paragraphs these last few days. It is a combined personal essay/comparative essay. I use "essay" loosely as most of the writings are a paragraph or two long. This is just what we're looking for at the beginning of the year. We would like to see where our students are as writers and this essay gives us a bit of a pre-test.

So far, students wrote a first draft, then shared it with partners using "pair-share" to find out what their readers felt were their best comparisons. After that they wrote a second draft emphasizing more detail on those comparisons. We're now working on getting rid of dead words, and students will hand in a final draft on Monday. The final draft should be either typed or written in blue or black in. Cursive or print is fine. In a final draft, I'm looking for a student to take pride in submitting their best work. I hope this pride translates into few if any punctuation and grammar errors and writing they have spent time polishing.

Ask your student to read their Toy Paragraph to you!