Trait Lesson Updates

Good morning all!  I am now on my 19th snow day.  (More like ice day).  We had a two hour delay due to the rain freezing the roads last night and early into this morning.  There were TONS of accidents this morning, however, it's warming up now and I'm wishing my kiddos were here.

The text that I am pulling the majority of my lessons from is called Getting to the Core of Writing. It is completely aligned with the Common Core Standards, as well as organized by the Traits.  Therefore, I can easily pull lessons that my kids need.

 For instance, I had many students that needed improvement in Word Choice.  Here is a lesson that I am using this week (when we have school) called "Go Figure," wherein students review the importance of similes and metaphors, and also hyperbole and idioms.  They practice recognizing these types of figurative language and then apply it into their writing.

Many of my students also needed lessons on sentence fluency, which I assumed even before I began grading their pre-assessments because I know this is an issue for basically all of my kids.  There were only a select few that actually didn't need assistance in the area of the Sentence Fluency Trait.  I chose these two lessons from the text above that involves instruction on utilizing complex sentences and then another involving "pumping up" sentences.  Each of these lessons involve guided examples, practice, and then application into a piece of writing.

 

This lesson involves students using compound subjects and predicates, so I will most likely instruct with this lesson prior to the complex sentences above. 

















 One of my students REALLY struggles with conventions. However, he scored quite well in other areas (including word choice and voice, which are typically areas that I know my kids are weak in).  So, I chose this lesson to start him off with.  You may think it's juvenile, but oftentimes, his lack of conventional awareness distracts his reader from understanding what he's trying to communicate.