CCSS ELA Standard: 5.W.4

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Improving Shakespeare’s Repetition

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

Change A Story’s Genre

What if we rewrote a story's climax into a totally different genre?

Order, Chaos, and the Holiday Season

Let's write a holiday song about order and chaos!

Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens

What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?

Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Holiday Writing: Packing Crates

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

Back to School: Rewriting The Beatles’ “Help!”

Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles' song Help!?

Writing About Art: The Scream

Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.

Writing Technique: Triple Anadiplosis!

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!

Doubling Up Writing: Anadiplosis

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

Remixing A Holiday Poem

Let's take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!

Pronouns With Too Many Antecedents

What happens when a pronoun could refer to more than one noun? Big problems!

Writing Summaries in Haiku

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

Teach Non-Fiction Writing Structure With Fractals

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

Writing Clear Directions

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

Better Stories Part 5: Plot Structure

Ever read a student's story that was just event after event after event and then a very sudden ending? They lack an understanding of a plot's structure. With the help of Finding Nemo, I break down how to set up a well-structured plot.