Write or Die 2 Explain Everything Drive Concrete Writing | A Descriptive Feast for the Senses “One of the cornerstones of powerful writing is the use of concrete details that can tell your story for you. I don’t care if you’re writing a sales letter, a blog post or a short story for The New Yorker, you need details.” ~Sonia Simone, Copyblogger.com This article contains affiliate links for products we’re confident your family will love! Concreteness transports us into a story like nothing else. It’s the key that unlocks the door of the reader’s imagination. If your teen’s paper is vague and sketchy, what happens? Choose Words Wisely Concrete writing engages the senses. Robust nouns and active verbs always pack more punch than weak ones that are simply preceded by a string of adjectives or adverbs. Search for Word Pictures It’s fun to ask your students to search for descriptive, concrete passages in the books they’re reading, such as this excerpt from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Notice how Tolkien paints a haunting image of Gollum as he makes his wily approach.
WRITING TOOLS Character Pyramid Tool (PDF) Visualize your character’s FLAWS & associated behaviors (for a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws) Character Target Tool (PDF) Organize and group your character’s POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES by category: moral, achievement, interactive or identity (for a greater understanding of this tool, please reference The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes) Character Profile Questionnaire (PDF) Not your average character questionnaire! Reverse Backstory Tool (PDF) Work backwards to find your character’s wound, needs & lie (for a deeper understanding of this tool, please reference The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws) Weak Verb Converter Tool (PDF) Transform all those generic, boring verbs into power verbs Scene Revision/Critique Tool Level 1 & Level 2 (PDF) A ‘light’ and ‘in-depth’ revision checklist for creating compelling characters and scenes
Learning Markdown: Write For The Web, Faster Table Of Contents §1–What is Markdown? §2–How Markdown Works §3–Learn Markdown In 20 Minutes or Less §4–Exporting and Printing Markdown Documents §5–MultiMarkdown Tutorials §6–Using Keyboard Shortcuts and Menu Items §7–Automation and Shortcut Tools §8–Markdown Editors for Mac, PC, iOS, Android, and Web Applications §9–Conclusion: Where To Go From Here §–Appendix: Cheat Sheet 1. There’s a wealth of articles about Markdown on the Internet, but many of the resources are not useful for how to get started using and laying Markdown syntax. Markdown was developed in 2004 by writer and blogger John Gruber. What Is Markdown? Markdown is essentially a syntax language for formatting text as you write. Formatting text in Microsoft Word, and other traditional text editors, can take a while. Additionally, the formatting done in programs like Word use a lot of code for formatting – code that can mess up articles intended to be published online. Some people, knowing this, use HTML formatting directly instead. 2. !
21 Grab-And-Go Teaching Tools For Your Classroom 21 Grab-And-Go Teaching Tools For Your Classroom by Lynn Usrey Every teacher wants to be able to make his or her classroom environment the optimum place for learning, interacting and engaging. Today, there is a wide assortment of free technology options available to enhance your instruction. The tools are changing… quickly. How about starting with lesson creation? 1. 2. Need something for instant polling? 3. 4. 5. Connecting with home learning? 6. 7. 8. 9. Current Events and Video Sourcing – There are great well-known resources at YouTube and CNN Student News, but have a look at: 10. 11. 12. The Less-Is-More Approach (And Tools 13-21) Since technology is always changing, don’t hesitate to explore new tools and ideas. For later grade levels, there are tools such as Hippocampus and Vocareum with a emphasis on secondary education.
Using our senses: A descriptive writing lesson - WriteShop ONE OF THE most difficult aspects of writing is perfecting the art of description—the thing that really brings a scene, image, character, or feeling alive within a piece of writing. While younger children often love using imaginative language, many struggle to find the most appropriate and engaging words to put down on paper. One of the best ways to engage students in descriptive and imaginative language is through the use of the five senses. Try out this fun and simple lesson to help your students experiment with descriptive language that is unique and full of life and movement. 1. It is through our five senses that we experience the world around us. Talk about sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.Collect words from your students that fall within each category. Talk about why it is difficult to come up with sensory words in this manner: Writing with your senses means you have to really take the time to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste what you are trying to write about. 2. 3.
Topic worksheets Join us on Facebook! Repairs around the home Picture sequence story and activities about turning off the water and calling a plumber to repair a leak. With ideas for a warm up, jumbled sentences, gapped text, a game, true/false, dialogues, and many extension activities. Taking a child to school Picture sequence story and activities about taking children to and from school: 'walking buses', drop offs on wet days, parking signs near schools and pedestrian safety. How to get your NZ driver licence Supermarket shoppingPicture scenario for asking for help and talking to the cashier in a supermarket. Giving feedback Picture scenarios for giving feedback in different situations: requests for personal opinions, for a phone survey, on a course form, online feedback (skype). Volunteering in a charity shopPicture sequence story about applying and being interviewed for a job. Job searchPicture sequence story about applying and being interviewed for a job. Emergency - fire! The haircut (A bad hair day)!
An Unofficial Guide to Goodreads for Readers and Writers Sortable: This customizes an order in your bookshelf. This can be useful for your favorites shelf (organized it from most-beloved to least), a ‘tearjerker’ shelf (from ‘drowning’ to ‘drizzle’) or whatever you come up with. First select the sortable option and then return to that book shelves page. Sticky: Bookshelves are ordinarily displayed in alphabetical order however stickied shelves will always top the list.Exclusive: Books can only be in one exclusive shelf at the time. 3.1.7 Organizing Your Books’ Columns Your ‘My Book’ page, by default, displays your books’ cover, title, author, avg. rating, rating, shelves, date read, and date added however the displayed information is customizable. To adjust these columns click the ‘Settings’ link located to the right of ‘Batch Edit’. Select or deselect the information that is interesting to you. 4. 4.1 Book Recommendations 4.1.1 Goodreads Computerized Book Recommendations Goodreads recommendations are not like Amazon recommendations. 4.2 eBooks
Ideas for adapting group lessons to working on Zoom As has happened in much of Europe, Poland has now closed schools, universities and other places where people might gather in the hope of reducing the spread of coronavirus. Our school had its last normal lessons on Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday dedicated to training our teachers how to use Zoom. We start teaching on Monday 16th, so my total experience with Zoom so far has been in the training process. Useful links International House World arranged a live session run by Shaun Wilden on Tuesday 10th, in which he introduced us to Zoom. I’d also recommend Ceri Jones’s posts on the Cambridge University Press blog: Other useful posts: Zoom’s updates on which countries they’ve lifted the 40-minute free limit for.Graham Stanley on keeping learners’ attention when remote teaching.Advice to those about to teach online (mainly aimed at university lecturers). There’s a very active hashtag on Twitter called #coronavirusteaching, which you can view without having a Twitter account. Playing audio
Describe an Imaginary Place or Strange Land Summer is a season of travel, a time of sandy beaches, hypnotic sunshine, stamped tickets, and the excited laughter of children visiting out-of-the-ordinary places. Summer vacations—and the summer months—fill our minds with those moments of wonder and imagination so natural to childhood and keep us connected to our own children. But sometimes the household budget doesn’t stretch quite far enough for exotic adventures. What to do? Go anyway! Here’s how! Start with a Map Gather your family around the kitchen table with paper, pencils, pens, and an atlas. Set Your Imagination Loose It’s time to describe an imaginary place! What color is the sky? Are there trees or flowering plants? Place yourself there. What kind of person—or wonderful being—could you allow yourself to be there? Create Your World As ideas shape themselves around your kitchen table, have your children create colorful maps and illustrated “travel guides” of their visionary worlds. Enjoy your magical travels this summer!
Parts of a Paragraph - Writing Tips Topic Sentence What is the topic sentence?The topic sentence is the first sentence in a paragraph. What does it do? How do I write one? Example: There are three reasons why Canada is one of the best countries in the world. Supporting Details What are supporting sentences? What do they do? How do I write them? Closing Sentence What is the closing sentence? What does it do? How do I write one?