Lydia Said:

Suggest fun activities that I can use in class to teach an essay writing to 14 year old students?

We Answered:

You could try creating an evening news report and give each student a role to play, i.e. news reader, reporter at the scene, reporter with witness,reporter with rescue services. and the story needs to be told to a blind and deaf person - so they will need to use all their skills to create an atmospher, convey feelings, convey surroundings, sounds etcTopics you could use could be:

Escape from Guantanamo
Eruption at Mount Helen's
Kidnap of president
Outside Death row prison on day of execution
Breaking news, such as Hurricane Katrina, earthquake in San Francisco.

Amber Said:

what's a fun way to get a hs senior to improve his writing..?

We Answered:

I used to teach a unit to 8th graders where they had to create their own rock band---had to write press releases and band member biographies. Kids loved it cuz they created the characters.

I also had a unit where the kids created their restaurants---created menus, press release, business plans...fun

Jeffrey Said:

Fun preschool pre-writing activities for my 4.5 year old?

We Answered:

I don't have the time to search this for you,,,but here's a suggestion. I've come across many Kindergarten Teacher's webpages. They almost always have pictures of their language arts projects. Search for these sites and have lots of fun!!!

Willard Said:

What are some fun activities for teaching descriptive writing?

We Answered:

One of my favorite ways to teach descriptive writing is (I think) a form of taboo.

Firs, I create a powerpoint (but you need not get that elaborate - I used to do it strictly by writing the sentence on an overhead or directly on the board) with 5-7 sentences that are missing a single descriptive word or phrase. Similes work great for this game too. An example would be "The sky was _____." This could also be a simile (the sky was as ___ as the ____)

Then, the students who are already divided into teams (generally 4-5 teams work well) have exactly 2 minutes to list exactly 5 ways to complete the sentence. They will get 1 point for each ORIGINAL description. This means that if they get loud and other groups hear, they will lose that opportunity for points. It also means that if they are thinking of typical cliches that will probably be on everyone's board, they will also lose that opportunity for points.

Once the 2 minutes is up, I randomly pick a group to start. They read the now descriptive sentence out loud. If no other group has that description, they get a point. If it is on another groups list, no points are awarded.

To keep things in the team spirit, I do keep track of separate points, but at the end we wrap things up by counting how many different ways they came up with to create new sentences.

Another fun activity is also a spinoff on a game. I start with a very simple sentence on the board. For example, I generally start with "The bird flew." We discuss that has all the basic components of a proper sentence (subject, predicate, etc) I then ask how the class can make the sentence more descriptive by adding only ONE word. It generally goes into a color - "The red bird flew." Then again, we add ONE more word. "The small red bird flew." It continues, often until we have a very colorful sentence and a very eager group of students who want to try it on their own!

Sherri Said:

what are some good writing activities for young girls (9-12 years old) coming of age?

We Answered:

They can keep a diary.

They can write a personal letter about themselves. They read it. Then store it in a place where it will not be found in a while.

Write a story using fiction characters. They can write how the characters are feeling using their emotions.

Write in a journal daily.