Guess Your Feedback I am currently reading Embedded Formative Assessment by Dylan William (2011). I came across these sentences about providing feedback on students’ writing: … instead of writing comments in the students’ notebooks, [the teacher] did so on strips of paper. That is so smart, isn’t it? First, I collected a group of five opinion essays from a fifth-grade teacher. Click to enlarge Or: Next, the five students met in a group, and each student was given the five pieces of feedback. Their job was to read the feedback statements and, through a group discussion, decide which feedback they thought went with their own essay. Here is some of what I overheard: Nolan: I think the last one is mine because I tend to do run-on sentences. Gavin: I think mine is the second one because I could see how it was hard to tell when one idea ended and another one started. Arianna: This is mine. Leilanni: That one isn’t mine. Like this: Like Loading...
short stories at east of the web A game of Scrabble has serious consequences. - Length: 4 pages - Age Rating: PG - Genre: Crime, Humor A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger. - Length: 7 pages - Genre: Fiction, Humor ‘Bloody hell!’ - Genre: Humor Looking round he saw an old woman dragging a bucket across the floor and holding a mop. - Length: 3 pages Henry pours more coal onto the hearth as a gust of wind rattles through the cracked window frame. - Length: 14 pages - Genre: Horror ulissa Ye relished all the comfortable little routines and quietude defining her part-time job at The Bookery, downtown’s last small, locally-owned bookstore. - Length: 8 pages - Age Rating: U The forest looked ethereal in the light from the moon overhead. - Length: 15 pages - Age Rating: 18 Corporal Earnest Goodheart is crouched in a ditch on the edge of an orchard between Dunkirk and De Panne. - Genre: Fiction - Length: 20 pages
Writing about Food and Culture | High School Writing Projects Do you have a teen gourmet or budding chef in the house? Have any of your kids traveled overseas? These writing activities invite them to explore recipes, describe travel experiences with food, or write a restaurant review. Encourage your high schoolers to explore their culinary passion or hobby with one of these projects that encourages writing about food and culture. This article contains affiliate links for books we think your family will enjoy. Writing Project: American As Apple Pie A well-rounded study of a geographic region or period of history can include maps, literature, art—even food! Search recipe files, family cookbooks, specialty cookbooks, and online sources to find some recipes that are uniquely American. If possible, choose a theme that ties into your current history or geography studies. Once you’ve chosen your topic and gathered your recipes, prepare three of them. Finally, make a booklet of your 10 recipes, designing or decorating it to match your theme. By Kim Kautzer
Be a better writer in 15 minutes: 4 TED-Ed lessons on grammar and word choice There’s no denying it — the English language can be mighty tricky. When writing a paper, a novel or even an e-mail, you might look at a sentence you just wrote and think, “Is that comma supposed to be there?” or “Is that really the best word to use?” Fear not! TED-Ed has put together a list of four of our favorite grammar and language lessons to get your next piece of writing in tip-top shape. First, let’s look at the often-confusing comma. What about the Oxford comma? Now, take an adjective such as “implacable” or a verb like “proliferate” or even another noun “crony,” and add a suffix, such as “-ity” or “-tion” or “-ism.” Finally, when it comes to good writing, don’t take the easy route!
Six Word Stories Put yourself in the picture This is a speaking task that encourages students to empathise with other people and try to understand them better. The activity uses a number of visuals of migrants and the students have to imagine they are the person in the picture. The activity is based on themes from the British Council OPENCities project www.opencities.eu PreparationDownload the worksheet with the images of the people and make enough copies so that each students can have one image. Images worksheet (pdf 313k) Procedure Choose one of the images to model the procedure.
Story Wars - Writing stories together Creative Writing Prompts I found this website quite by chance. It’s one of these sites that you definitely want to bookmark as it comes in very handy when you want to do some writing practice, need to come up with a good story starter or some prompts for a five-minute writing activity and your inspiration has run dry. Don’t worry! It happens in the best families! The site is called Creative Writing Prompts. Some suggestions to use this website: A quick writing activity in class. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: Excellent Story Writing Apps for Students July 31, 2015 Below is a short collection of some interesting iPad apps students can use to help them with their writing and more specifically, outlining, drafting and writing stories. Some of these apps are featured here for the first time but for more options on digital storytelling apps check out this page. 1- The Brainstormer ‘The Brainstormer is kindling for creative minds. 2- Story Liner ‘Whether you are writing for film, television, the stage, the next great novel or the next non-fiction bestseller, organizing your story is key. 3- StorySkeleton ‘Ideas strike wherever you are. 4- A Novel Idea ‘A Novel Idea is the premier tool for plotting your story and recording bursts of inspiration. 5- Character ‘Knowing who your characters are, is the most important part of the writing process. 6- Roy’s Story Cubes ‘9 cubes, 54 images, Over 10 million combinations, Unlimited stories!
Creating Characters with Music | Edutopia Posted 01/13/2015 7:07PM | Last Commented 01/19/2015 11:08AM “You want to write a great story? Create a character. Make everyone fall in love in him. Then get him in trouble.” -- Bruce Coville While a great story will keep an adult “with the writer,” a great character is what children crave. When I was a wee-little music fan, you could find me huddled around a record player singing about rock-n-rollin’ all night and partying every day. I want my Mtv! Videos flooded the television! Find Music Hopefully you have a nice music library on your phone or iPod. Teach and Model The idea is for the students to quickly draw/name/note while the tune spins. Draw: A quick pencil sketch of the singer (s) Name: If a name pops in their heads, write it down! Click Play I would play around a minute of each song, but that’s negotiable. Reveal At the end of the lesson, reveal what the artists really look like. Now what? That’s up to you.
LearnEnglish Teens learner diary | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC Every week learners look at a different section of the website. Each activity encourages learners to choose a topic that interests them and to explore it in a structured way. They are also required to reflect on their opinion of the website and to prepare for sharing their learning experience with their peers in the next lesson. Here is a step-by-step approach to using the diary with your teenage students: Set regular days for discussing the diary which allow students ample time to complete the tasks (and you ample time for marking!). Possible follow-up ideas: Students create a poster/leaflet as a website guide for other students.Write a report on your favourite or least-favourite section or activity from the website. If you have any other ideas for follow-up activities, please post them in the comments box below. by Lara Pedelty (British Council teacher in Morocco)
Writing Exercises and Prompts Sara Bruuns klassrum