Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Compare and Contrast Lesson: You Can't Ask for That! Poetry
After listening to the song "Love Song" by Sarah Bareilles and the poem "Valentine for Ernest Mann" by Naomi Shihab, Nye, student will compare and contrast the ideas in them. Sara Bareilles didn't think you can ask for a love song...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Compare and Contrast Lesson: Are Artists Good Neighbors?
After reading the picture book When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden, students will research an artist with a unique style. Students will partner with another student who's artist has a different style. Students will pretend their two...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Voice Building Poetry Lesson: Comparison & Contrast Poems
In this lesson, students examine multiple mentor texts to help drive them toward the final persuasive writing assignment: comparison and contrast poems written from a parent and a child's perspective. A short story, two poems, and a song...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Voice Building Poetry Lesson: Four Metaphor Poetry
Inspired by Mem Fox's Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge which includes four metaphors for memory, this writing prompt asks students to think of an original abstract noun. Students will brainstorm details as they come up with ideas for...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Picture Book Writing Lesson: Pros, Cons, and Interesting Hooks
Inspired by the picture book How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long, an enthusiastic tale that explores the pros and cons of being a pirate, students will research an interesting job and prepare to write about it. While researching, the...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: A Picture Book Writing Lesson: Start With What Isn't There
In this lesson plan, learners will describe a setting, attempting to set a mood for their readers in two paragraphs. Borrowing a technique from Stephen Kramer's two-page introduction to Caves, they will begin with a paragraph that...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Same Setting, Different Moods
In this lesson,writers will examine and discuss techniques that writers use to link moods to setting descriptions (Lord of the Flies by William Golding). Next, they will choose a mood and an interesting setting, and they will imagine a...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: A Poem for Two Voices for Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
The focus trait for this instructional activity is idea development; students will use the pre-determined structure of a "poem for two voices" to explore unique ideas. The text used is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Antonyms and Comma Splices
For Dickens' opening to his Tale of Two Cities, he uses one of the longest series of comma splices in the history of literature. Dickens seemingly did this for stylistic effect. In this lesson, students create their own Dickens-like...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: With Your Own Two Hands
In this lesson, students Use Ben Harper's "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting On The World To Change" to ponder their roles in changing the world. After analyzing how a variety of important people changed the world,...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: With Your Own Two Hands
Students work to develop strong ideas by listening to songs like "With My Own Two Hands" by Ben Harper, "Year of the Rat" by Badly Drawn Boy, and "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer. After brainstorming and completing graphic...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Poems
In this lesson students listen to three modern songs that capture the symbolism in words--"Yesterday" by the Beatles, "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins, and "Tomorrow" from the Annie Soundtrack. They will analyze their own experiences...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: My Adidas: Letting Your Possessions Tell Your Story
In this lesson, students will listen to Run D.M.C.'s classic, "My Adidas", then they will think about everywhere their shoes have taken them and the story they have to tell. Using literary devices such as personification, point of view,...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Poems About Ages and Stages
William Shakespeare's "The Seven Ages of Man" pointed out how life happens in stages. Modeling the Bard himself and Harry Chapin's "Cat's In The Cradle", which breaks a father-son relationship into four stages (verses), each student will...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: The Legend Lives On
In this instructional activity, learners will Use "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", sung by Gordon Lightfoot as a model. They will write poems that tell a detailed story of a historical event. The poem will be brought to life using a...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Creating a Second Person Choice Story
This lesson plan is designed to help students understand plot dimensions and literary devices while writing a multi-faceted short story that has many possible outcomes. For inspiration, students will analyze songs that tell stories for...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: One Minute in Time Poems
The Cure's song "10:15 on a Saturday Night" explains what happens in one slowed-down minute as the singer is waiting for an important phone call, while also utilizing some catchy onomatopoeia to emphasize the seconds ticking by. In this...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Color My World Grey and Blue
After listening to the song "Grey Street" by the Dave Matthews Band, and the song "Blu is a Mood" by Blu Cantrell, students will explore the lyrics and discover what role color can play when combined with a particular setting. Students...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Quest Item Poetry
After listening to and sketching several scenes from the stories of Theseus and Orpheus, young scholars will imagine a scene of themselves standing on the road of life, about to embark on a journey into the world. Inspired by the quest...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: c.s.i.: The Cory Crime Scene
The character talked about in E. A. Robinson's poem, Richard Cory, is about a man with everything, a man that everyone wants to be like, a man who ends his own life without explanation. Singers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, intrigued by...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Beautiful Noise Poetry
In this lesson, learners will listen to just the sounds from two YouTube videos; they will use a graphic organizer to create a mind movie. Inspired by the images that their minds created, they will then listen to Neil Diamond's...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Ain't That America
Students think that classic literature and historic events have little in common with life today, right? Think again! In this lesson, students get a chance to compare themes from classic novels or from American history to those found in...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Creating Memorable Advice
Inspired by "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)," this instructional activity asks students to think about memorable writing--writing that has, in some way, touched them personally. Students will make multiple drafts of simple advice...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Advice to Youth on Things Now Gone
Poetry and music are unmistakably intermixed, and in this lesson, we focus on the word choice and idea development of both song and poem. After listening to the modern song and reading the famous old poem, "Gone" by Switchfoot and "To...