Writing Wednesdays! Adding details to sentences

I was teaching my students yesterday about adding details to their sentences.  I introduced to them triangle sentences.  Start with a noun.  Then add a strong verb.  Then add an adjective, an adverb, and a prepositional phrase.  My students asked me if I would make a foldable for them to help them remember what to add to their sentences.  One of my students suggested that I come up with pictures to help them remember.  So.....I decided to use colored stars of different sizes to remind them to use adjectives.  I then used a heart with muscles to remind them to use strong verbs.  To remind them to use adverbs I used a turtle and a rabbit.  I explained that turtles run the race slowly and rabbits run the race quickly.  Last but not least, I used a table to remind them to use prepositional phrases.  You can be on the table, off the table, go around the table, etc.  I hope you enjoy this freebie.  Let me know what you think.  Click here.

Writing Wednesdays: Main Idea and Supporting Details

So as I am trying to prepare my students for the WV Writing assessment, I keep taking them back to organization.  It is my personal opinion that organization is the most important part of the process for elementary students.  (Again, my opinion.)  I created an organizer for my students to use as they practice that helps them keep their ideas organized and focused.  I made the organizer from years and years of trial and error.  It is a mix of several different writing methods I've used over the years.  For descriptive and expository writing, I believe students must have 3 strong main ideas and strong supporting details. Below you'll find a freebie of my organizer as well as a link to my writing trait checklist freebie.  Now when I say writing traits I am not referring to the 6 + 1 traits for writing.  My state has a rubric that is based off of the 6 + 1 traits for writing but they name them a bit differently. My checklist is based on my state's rubric.

Organizer freebie

Checklist freebie

I expect my students to include a beginning, middle, and an end to their stories.  The beginning should include a hook (a sentence to grab the reader's attention), the topic sentence, and then answer the 5 w's (who, what, when, where, and why).  The beginning should then end with a feeling sentence about the topic.

The middle is for supporting the topic sentence with main ideas and supporting details.  Each main idea should be written into a main idea sentence beginning with a transition word.  Then students need three good supporting details for each main idea.  If students are having trouble with their supporting details, encourage them to think about the 5 w's again.  They make great supporting details.  I then teach the students to give examples of each supporting details.  (I learned this from Four Square Writing.)  After students give an example of the detail, they can then elaborate on the example.  Judy Gould does a great job of explaining this and giving examples of how this works in her book Writing Workouts that Work.

Since students are writing three main ideas, the middle of their stories becomes three distinct paragraphs.

The final paragraph of course begins with a transition word and then restating the topic sentence.  I then have my students either state the main ideas again or give an interesting idea about the topic.  The ending should then leave the reader thinking.  In my Super Writing Pack I put together, I made a poster of different types of endings students could use in their writing.  Visit my TpT store or my Teacher's Notebook store to see more of my Super Writing Pack.  

Halloween Descriptive Writing Monster Activity

Every year I start teaching descriptive writing with the describe a monster project.  I've seen it around in other venues but I first heard about this idea from a co-worker.  We instruct the children to draw a monster, any monster they want.  I encourage them to add details and use colors.  Other than that, I do not give them any other instructions.  I do tell them to keep their drawings top secret.  I then have the students describe their monsters.  No matter how much I want to instruct them on being descriptive, I hold my tongue.  I just tell them to describe it using complete sentences.  I then collect the monster pictures and then the descriptions.  In the next lesson, I pass out the descriptions randomly just making sure that no one gets their own.  The students then have to draw the monster using only the description.  I tell them that if the description doesn't say it, don't draw it or make it up.  On the third lesson, we begin comparing the original drawing to the second one.  It is such an eye opener to the students.  We discuss ideas that would have made a better picture in the mind of the reader.  I use words like vertical and horizontal when describing stripes and color and shape words.  This year I added a twist to this project.  I let the students get together with the person who read their description.  I had the drawer explain to the writer what he/she would have liked to know in order to draw the picture better.  I then had the writer revise their writing based on the recommendations.  My plan was to then have another class read the descriptions and see if the new pictures were closer to the original.  It didn't work out this time.  I will repeat this lesson though every month.  Hopefully I can add the last piece in eventually.  Here are some pictures of my students' work: The original is on the left followed by the original writing then the second drawing and the revision.

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Main Idea and Supporting Details Fun Activity

Today my friend showed me a great activity for teaching and/or reviewing main idea and supporting details.  She gave me five large grocery bags filled with various items.  Each bag's items were the details and the kids had to figure out what the main idea could be as well as the topic.  For example, we did the following bag together.  Inside the bag were the following items: a mixing bowl, cake mix, sprinkles and icing, and a cake pan.  What do you think the main idea is?  Baking a cake? or maybe items needed to bake a cake? The topic was cakes.

The kids had a great time with this activity.  We then gave each group their own bag and a graphic organizer.

We passed the bags around until each group had a turn with each one.  This was such an effective way to reinforce main idea.  Now that the students have completed the organizers for each of the bags, the students can write a paragraph to go with each main idea and details.  I also plan to have the students add another paragraph with a new main idea and details to support the topic.