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Vivid Verbs
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
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Strong Descriptive Writing: James and the Giant Peach
Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...
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Writing with Vivid Verbs
Students find vivid verbs in literature and use them in their own writing. In this vivid verbs lesson, students use a 'Thinking Thesaurus' of major verbs to study common verbs. Students then practice rewriting sentences using vivid...
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Homophones and Vivid Verbs
Students define and practice using synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, and homophones in complete sentences, paragraphs and essays. They include "vivid verbs" in their writing with the aid of a dictionary or thesaurus.
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Vivid Verbs in Writing
Eighth graders explore how to incorporate vivid verbs in their writing. They review action verbs in sentences and view a Power Point presentation discussing possible verbs and their meanings. They view a website and retell a Greek myth...
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Eliminate Weak Verb-Adverb Combinations
Encourage your writers to use sob instead of cry loudly to trade in adverbs for strong verbs. Improve your middle and high schoolers' writing with this humorously written lesson which demonstrates how to remove excessive adverbs.
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Vivid Verbs
Young scholars find vivid verbs in the story Thank You for the Thistle, by Doree Durston. They add vivid verbs to an existing story to make it more interesting.
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Strong Verb Image Makers
Students use description language to clarify ideas and create vivid images in an essay focusing of strong verbs. They discuss weak verbs and explore that the better image the words create, the better the reader understands the text.
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Writing with Strong Verbs
Learners use strong verbs in their writing. In this verbs in writing lesson, students locate the verbs in their writing, then identify the verbs that are weak and make revisions.
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Vivid Verbs
Students explore parts of speech by collaborating in groups. In this verbs lesson, students examine several boring sentences with their class and define verbs which can spice the sentence up. Students collaborate in pairs to enhance...
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Eliminate "To Be" Verbs
Students remove to beverbs from their writing. In this verb usage lesson, students write strategies from eliminating to be verbs, then locate the verbs in their writing and eliminate as many as possible.
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Awesome Animals
Sixth graders write descriptive narratives about animals. In this descriptive writing lesson, the teacher models how to write a paragraph with interesting sensory words and exciting verbs. Students choose a picture of an animal they want...
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Narrative Writing: Using Exact Words
Review the narrative writing process with your emerging story writers. They read a sample narrative and identify five vague verbs that could be replaced with a more exact, exciting verb. Then they write a personal narrative making sure...
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Mix and Match Poetry
Third graders compare boring and vivid words: adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. They list them and come up with 10 vivid words on cards. They shuffle all the cards and use 10 to write "vivid" poetry.
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Food
Students, discussing/brainstorming about food likes/dislikes all around the world with vivid verbs to talk about food preparation, create an original poem on how food is prepared in different parts of the world.
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Show! Don't Tell!
Students write a descriptive paragraph. In this writing lesson, students define elaboration and discuss the characteristics of an elaborate paragraph. Students write a paragraph that contains vivid adjectives, strong verbs and exact nouns.
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Poetry and PowerPoint
Third graders read and discuss the poem, "April Rain Song" by Langston Hughes. After brainstorming examples of vivid verbs, figures of speech, language patterns, and imagery used in the poem, 3rd graders write a poem on a topic of...
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Post-It Poetry
Seventh graders explore how to spice up their work using vivid words and images. Afte a lecture/demo, 7th graders try their hand at writing poetry using a lot of adjectives and vivid verbs.
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Grammar Conventions/Vocabulary-Parts of Speech/Dynamic Vocabulary Review
Fifth graders study verbs. In the grammar lesson, 5th graders are put into small groups and write verbs on each poster board posted.
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Said Is Dead
Students revise writing to improve organization and word choice. They check for logic, order of ideas and precision of vocabulary. Students list different verbs for the word "said." They write dialogue in which the speakers tell a story...
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Mouthwatering Adjectives!
Third graders write descriptions of food items in order to create a restaurant menu. They use adjectives to describe mouth-watering and vivid food and compare it to a boring adjective-lacking menu. They design and share their menus with...
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Add Awesome Alliteration to Your Writing
Students explore alliteration. For this writing lesson, students read the book Thank You for the Thistle and create sentences with alliteration. Students create an alphabet booklet with alliteration.
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Scene Writing: Literacy and Playwriting
Drama is ever-present in our daily lives and eloquently depicted on stage. Middle schoolers practice writing scenes based on different prompts and frameworks, and then perform those creative scenes for their classmates. The...
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Comparison Contrast Essay
Students compare and contrast the experience of the migrant worker as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath with the experiences of migrant children as depicted in the narratives and poems provided.