LEARNING THE TRAITS OF GOOD WRITERS
USING CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE
“No matter how old the writer,
no matter how stuck the student may be to find a good topic, extraordinary
picture books provide inspiration … these books serve as wonderful models of
how to work with an idea and make it real to the reader.” Ruth Culham
Our book corner contains buckets of children’s books that are
sorted and labeled by writing trait. The
kids are able to read lots of examples of books with good writing traits, in
addition to the ones we read together as part of the lessons below.
Workshop Format:
o
Read-aloud/mini-lesson
o
Write
o
Share
writings as a group
Some lessons will take a day, others will take several days.
Setting the Stage …
o
Read
aloud Author and What Authors Do
o
Decorate
writer’s notebook with photos that spark writing ideas
o
Read
aloud Saving Sweetness and Raising Sweetness
Trait 1: Ideas
Lessons
on “INSPIRING IDEAS”: select a topic,
narrow and focus a topic, add unique ideas, provide details that elaborate the
main idea, give accurate information
o
FINDING A TOPIC -Read aloud You Have to Write , talk about the best
types of topics are everyday things, make a list of 10-15 everyday topics you could
write about.
o
FOCUSING THE TOPIC - Read aloud The Important Book. Emphasize writing a lot of detail about a
small topic rather than trying to choose a very large topic. Write a list of 20 details about a topic then
write an important poem about it. You
can also give the kid’s unusual topics to try afterwards.
o
ELABORATE
– Read All the Places to Love.
Have kids choose a location special to them and make a list of things
they feel, taste, see, smell, and hear.
Then write a descriptive writing about that place using all the details.
o
REVISING FOR DETAILS – Tell Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Tell a bare-bones
version of the story with VERY few details and leave out quite a bit. Then in a class lesson have the kids fill in
the story with loads of fun, creative details.
Write it together. Talk about how we always need to revise our writings
and add detail to make them better.
o
WRITING TO
o
GATHERING IDEAS ….Read Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street.
Have students visit different places around the school (art room, gym, library,
etc) and record details happening in those locations. Then they can write their own “Nothing Ever
Happens” stories where they begin with the real observations and add their own
surprises to the stories.
Trait 2: Organization
Lessons on “SHAPING ORGANIZATION”: inviting lead, smooth
transitions, logical order of ideas, effective pacing, strong conclusions
o
EFFECTIVE LEADS: Read The Escape of
Marvin the Ape. Share effective
leads from other famous children’s picture and chapter books. Discuss the different types of leads and try
writing some of our own.
o
DEVELOPING STRONG LEADS: Read My
‘Ol Man. Have students write about a
cherished memory focusing on having a strong lead.
o
ORGANIZING BY CONTENT: A
Freshwater Pond and Life in the Polar Lands
o
ORGANIZE BY TIME- One
Day: The Secret Shortcut and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible,
No Good, Very Bad Day. Write a
paragraph is time order about your worst day ever.
o
ORGANIZE BY TIME-Journey or Passage of
Time: A Chair for My Mother
o
ORGANIZE BY TIME- Circle Stories: Free
Fall
o
ORGANIZE BY SPACE: Good Night Moon and Barnyard Banter.
Write a paragraph using spatial order describing your favorite place.
o
SMOOTH TRANSITIONS: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch and Big,
Bad Bruce. Write a paragraph
focusing on the use of transition words.
o
WRITING CONCLUSIONS: Read Enemy Pie
and Jumanji as examples of books with great conclusions. Read examples of picture and chapter books
that have different types of conclusions:
restating or summarizing an important idea, giving a challenge to the
reader, a moral or something learned, personal observations, humor, a look into
the future, a promise, or life continues.
Write a concluding paragraph for your school year.
Trait 3: Voice
Lessons
on “SPARKING VOICE”: Interesting tone, strong connection between reader and
writer, passion for the topic, engaging text, let the reader “hear” you!
o
STRONG VOICE vs. WEAK VOICE: Read Goldilocks
by James Marshall. Compare a dull
version to Marshall’s version and comment how voice makes Marshall’s version
more memorable and unique.
o
STRONG VOICE vs. WEAK VOICE: Read Ant’s
Life. Read encyclopedia article about ants then Ant’s Life book. Talk about how point of view … adding a
“voice” to the information” makes it much more interesting and personal. Also read Diary of a Worm. Write a paragraph giving your favorite animal
a “voice.”
o
POINT OF VIEW CHANGES VOICE: Pictures
of four different kinds of shoes: cowboy boot, high heeled shoe, beat up
sneaker, beach sandal. What experiences might these shoes have had and what
might their attitudes, likes and dislikes be?
What might they say to each other?
Have students give one of the shoes voice and tell us what that shoe
might have to say.
o
MORE ON VOICE AND POINT OF VIEW:
Read Wolf!
And The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Write a paragraph from the
viewpoint of an antagonist giving him a chance to have his say using his unique
voice.
o
CREATING VOICE: Read Sweet Dream Pie.
Write a descriptive piece from the point of view of your favorite
dessert using a warm, inviting voice.
Trait 4: Word Choice
Lessons
on “EXPANDING WORD CHOICE”: Precise, powerful, and natural language that makes
the meaning clear; energetic verbs and adjectives; memorable phrases; and vivid
descriptions.
o
PRECISE, POWERFUL LANGUAGE: Read Hello
Harvest Moon. Write down examples of
powerful language and personification.
Write our own nature descriptions.
o
ENERGETIC VERBS: Read Mama and Me
and the Model T, In the Small, Small Pond and Where Once There
Was A Wood. Collect energetic verbs! Write a paragraph focusing on using energetic
verbs.
o
POWERFUL VERBS: Read Bullfrog Pops! Students will create a new page to add to the
book.
o
WORD CHOICE ANTICS: Read Antics!
Create our own synonym and antonym lists.
o
EXPANDING WORD CHOICE: Wolf
Who Cried Boy! Write our own “boy”
dishes.
Trait 5: Sentence Fluency
Lessons
on “SENTENCE FLUENCY”: Natural rhythm, fluent phrasing that is music to the
ear, varied sentence beginnings and lengths
o
HEARING THE RHYTHM: Read aloud examples from books with notable sentence fluency,
such as A Brilliant Streak, Julie of the Wolves, Mrs. Mack,
Missing May, and Charlotte’s Web.
o
SENTENCE BUILDING: Writing color poems to
move from simple sentences to complex sentences.
o
EXPANDING SENTENCES: Read aloud Cats. Talk about the way the author expands and
combines sentences to build a fluent piece of writing. Write expanded sentences of our own.
o
SIMILES: Read
Owl Moon and Quick as a Cricket. Write our own similes.
o
HEARING FLUENCY: Read aloud Bat Loves the Night. Notice how two different modes of writing –
descriptive and expository- are combined.
Write a similar paragraph of our own.
o
USING SHORT AND LONG SENTENCES: Read Bad
Dog. Write a paragraph of our own
using both short and long sentences.
o
ALLITERATION: Read The Web Files then write some
alliteration sentences of our own!
o
FEELING THE RHYTHM: Twilight Comes
Twice. Then write about our own
ordinary event in an extraordinary way.
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