This Lesson's Title:

Writing Like an Artist Paints

crafting with color, texture, and shape words

This lesson was created by the
Northern Nevada Writing Project's
Co-Director, Kim Cuevas, who presented it at an
AT & T-sponsored inservice class for teachers.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from chapter 3 of the book.

Check out Chasing Vermeer at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

The writer will compose a descriptive paragraph that focuses on some object moving quickly past a character who is standing still.  Like Balliett does in Chasing Vermeer, the writer will use a healthy (both controlled) dose of artistic words, so the written scene comes across as painting-like.  The goal is to make writers more aware of the power of using words creatively in writing.  Teachers: click here to read the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is idea development; using interesting and specific details should be the number one goal of the writer.  The support trait in this assignment is word choice; basing word choices on a theme (in this case: artistic words) is a marvelous way to show the power of word choices.