Writing Techniques

Let’s help William Shakespeare with his use of repetition.

Let’s take a starting phrase about St. Patrick’s Day and get specific. No, even more specific!

Let’s make this simile about a strong uncle even more specific.

Students will make this slimy broccoli simile seriously specific.

Let’s make this simile about a quick baby even more specific.

Have students mastered the art of anadiplosis: ending one sentence with the beginning of the next? Now it’s time to take it to the next level!

Repeating words can be what you want, if what you want is an interesting effect. (Psst, that’s an example of anadiplosis!)

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be writing sentences with three dependent clauses.

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be contrasting two ideas using synonyms.

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be using antonyms to describe the same topic!

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with gerunds, participle phrases, and absolute phrases.

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.

“Add more variety!” I’d say to my class. But I never really knew what this actually meant. Suprise! This bad advice never improved students’ writing. In these videos, students learn nine specific ways to add variety just by changing the beginning of their sentences. This was easily one of my students’ favorite writing tools – because it actually helped them.