CCSS ELA Standard: 3.W.10

Students will look closely at this old image and write a short, structured poem.

Students will create a pretty darn interesting poem about Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons.

Students will create a surprisingly good poem based on Monet's Impression, Sunrise.

Get your students writing some pretty darn impressive poetry based on Japan's most famous artist.

Students will look closely at a piece of art and then write a structured poem about it.

Students will write about a beautiful painting from Frederic Edwin Church.

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.

Let's write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…

Can you write directions so clear that a group of kids can put a toy together with no illustrations?