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Cooperative Learning Writing Activities is a good source for those who use Kagan's Cooperative Learning structures
in their classrooms. It contains ready-to-use blackline masters and
activities that tie into many aspects of writing. I believe the book
may be somewhat confusing for those who are not familiar with the
cooperative learning strategies. If cooperative learning is a part
of your classroom, but you have wondered how to use it with writing, this
is the resource for you.
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The Writer's Almanac: Tips and Resources for Every Kind of Writing is divided into nine sections which include, general writing issues,
the writing process, fundamentals, fiction basics, fiction forms,
nonfiction basics, nonfiction forms, poetry, and an extensive lexicon
(glossary) of writing terms. Although the book does not contain
activities, it will serve well as a reference for mini-lessons. It
can be used as a reference for the teacher, or key pages can be reproduced
for student handouts.
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How to Write a Paragraph: Grades 6-8 contains over 30 reproducible activities to help students write
effective paragraphs. Topics covered include essential parts of a
paragraph, kinds of paragraphs, and putting paragraphs together to form
longer works.
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I am including How to Write a Paragraph: Grades 1-3 because it is
similar to the one above. |
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| How to Write an Essay: Grades 6-8 contains
reproducibles that guide students through the entire writing process for
essays. Included are activities for finding a topic, finding
information, outlining, using transitions, introductions and conclusions,
writing the rough draft, editing, revising, rewriting, and presenting the
essay.
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How to Write a Research Report: Grades 6-8 a source with simple activities that help students learn a systematic
approach to writing research papers. Sections in the book include
getting started, finding and organizing information, prewriting, writing,
a one page glossary of research terms, and additional print and internet
resources.
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How to Write a Research Report: Grades 3-6 is similar to the one above. |
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How to Write a Simple Report: Grades 1-3 is similar to the one above. |
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If
you are looking for a detailed source to help you teach the research
process to your students, How to Write a Great Research Paper is it. It contains reproducibles to
guide students from choosing a topic, to taking notes, to documenting
sources, to writing the rough draft, to and completing the final paper. It
is written in student friendly language and contains specific
examples.
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Are
you tired of the same old report format? Reports That Student
Love to Write & Teachers Love to Read is for you.
It contains 24 alternatives to the traditional report. Included are
a letter or postcard report, a comic strip report, a newspaper report, and
a timeline report. Each report format begins with information and
instructions for the teacher. Also included are planning forms for
the students and an assessment rubric for each report format. |
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| How to Punctuate: Grades 6-8 contains simple activities to introduce or reinforce the use of
basic punctuation. Elements included are end marks, abbreviations,
commas, semicolons, colons, underlining or italics, quotation marks,
apostrophes, and hyphens. Lessons can be taught in any order, and
the teacher can choose which ones work best match his/her students'
needs.
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| How to Punctuate: Grades 3-5 is similar to the one
above |
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| How to Punctuate: Grades 1-3 is similar to the one above. |
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| 50 Writing Lessons That Work contains easy activities that help teach and reinforce specific
writing skills. Among the skills covered are writing clear topic
sentences, stating an opinion, writing a first-person narrative, and
creating a believable character. This book contains ideas that work well for teaching
the Six Trait Writing model. |
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| 25 Mini-Lessons for Teaching Writing contains ideas that work well for teaching all six
traits in the Six Trait Writing model, although only some of the traits are
mentioned by name. This is a wonderful resource that gives the purpose,
needed materials, teaching ideas, student activity, and follow up activities
for each mini-lesson. The lessons require very little preparation by the
teacher. |
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Brighten Up Boring Beginnings and Other Quick Writing Lessons contains 18 mini-lessons with follow-up student activities.
The mini-lessons cover improving sentence structure and writing style,
writing introductions that grab the reader, and creating strong images
with figurative language. There are also 25 writing challenges
to reinforce learned skills.
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| Helping Students Revise Their Writing contains ideas that will help you create lessons that
encourage students to revise. There are also seven detailed mini-lessons
that relate to the traits of Organization, Voice, and Word Choice, although the traits aren't mentioned by name. In addition, there is information on
the writing process and portfolios. |
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| Building Proofreading Skills is a great source for helping students learn the art of
proofreading. The first few chapters cover the basics of spelling,
punctuation, and capitalization. Each begins with a pretest. Rules
are then presented with activities to practice proofreading for errors in
the use of those rules. The final chapters contain longer
selections for proofreading as well as writing prompts for the students to
create their own works to be proofread. |
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The Student Editor contains over 60 reproducible activities/worksheets that provide
editing practice in several areas. Those areas include
capitalization, punctuation, run-on sentences and fragments, verb usage,
pronoun usage, homonyms, and spelling. There are also several
activities that require the use of all editing skills. The final
section is an 11 page grammar handbook which includes 130 sets of homonyms
with example sentences. (Yes, 130 sets!)
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Hooked on Writing: Ready-to-Use Writing Process Activities for Grades 4-8 contains over 230 pages of ideas, activities, and
reproducible lessons. There are activities for each stage of the writing
process and different types of writing. Also included are ideas that work
well for teaching all six traits in the Six Trait Writing model, although
the traits are not mentioned by name. This is a wonderful resource.
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Think & Write provides over 75 short and simple activities that require students
THINK before they WRITE. Areas covered include sequencing,
observing, comparing, classifying, imagining, and evaluating. These
activities work as starting points for further writing. If your
students are having a difficult time getting started, these activities
will help.
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| Writing Survival Skills for the Middle Grades
contains over 50 activities concerning many areas of
writing, from journals to resumes. There are also activities that work well
for the trait of organization, although the trait is not mentioned by
name. |
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Although Writers in Training does not contain many detailed activities, it
is a good source for a teacher using the Writing Workshop approach. There
are some activities to go with the detailed explanations of each of the four
parts in the program. The four parts include 1) daily practice in
"showing, not telling," 2) daily practice in evaluating writing,
3) using "showing, not telling" in revision, and 4) learning
specific techniques. This book has over 230 pages and seems very
overwhelming at first. This resource is not for the teacher who dislikes
structure.
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Writing Workshop Survival Kit is a 260 page book that covers how to manage a writing workshop. It
also contains activities for all stages in the writing process and
mini-lessons that cover organization, word choice, sentence
fluency, and writing conventions. However, the traits are not
mentioned by name.
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Complete Writing Lessons for the Middle Grades contains 30 activities that take the students through
all of the stages in the writing process. Different types of writing are
covered from reports to mysteries to fables to poetry. Some of the
activities can be tied into a few of the six traits. Again, the traits are
not mentioned by name.
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| Writing to Explain contains over 50 short activities covering many areas
of expository writing. There are also activities which would work well for
teaching sentence fluency, although the trait is not mentioned by
name. There is also a section on proofreading. |
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| Write About It: Middle Grades contains over 60 short activities that cover everything from poetry to vocabulary to
note taking to plot. There are many activities
that work well for word choice, sentence fluency, organization
and writing conventions, although the traits are not mentioned by
name. |
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