Grade 8

CCSS ELA Standard: 8.W.5

With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.

Getting Specific With St. Patrick’s Day Writing

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

Super Specific Similes – Strong Uncle

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

Super Specific Similes – Slimy Broccoli

Students will make this slimy broccoli simile seriously specific.

Super Specific Similes: Quick Baby

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

Super Specific Similes: Loud Class

Let's make this simile about a loud class super specific!

Super Specific Similes: Stinky Seaweed

Students will make this simile about stinky seaweed super specific.

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?

Writing About Art: Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons

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

Writing About Art: Impression, Sunrise

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

Writing in Pilish

Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?

Writing About Art: Chōshi in Shimosha

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

Writing About Art: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

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

Writing About Art: Twilight in the Wilderness

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

Fancier Figurative Language: Use the Opposite

Let's start with "As cold as fire."

Fancier Figurative Language: Move the Simile

What if we started a sentence with the simile?

Ambiguous Sentences

Rather than just demand that students "write clearly," we'll explore the hazards of poorly written sentences… and maybe create one of our own!

Passive to Active Voice

In this lesson, students will not just fix passive sentences, but break active sentences as they learn to put the star of the sentence first.

Ways to Start a Sentence – Part 3

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

Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 2

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

Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1

"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.

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…