This Lesson's Title:

A Magical Animal Encounter

writing a three-part story about meeting an animal with special powers

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Tracy Soules at an AT&T-sponsored in-service class for teachers.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the chapter book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from chapter one of this book.

Check out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 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:

This writing lesson is fashioned after Harry Potter’s encounter with a communicative boa constrictor at the zoo. Inspired by Rowling's original idea, students will be asked to create a three-part story about an original magical animal they think up on their own, using “showing” words instead of “telling” words. Students' stories will describe their meeting with the animal, and they will experience first-hand the magic or power their animal has. Teachers: click here to read the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait is idea development; the writer’s goal is to create a description that contains interesting, high quality details when describing important characters or people. . The support trait is word choice; students will focus on strong verbs and nouns as they building a "showing" story.