This Lesson's Title:

Summertime and the Writin' is Easy

Using various interpretations of Gershwin's Summertime to study voice and style for writing

This lesson was created for WritingFix after being proposed by Northern Nevada Teacher Consultant Amy Richards.

This writing prompt inspired by

Summertime, originally written for the opera Porgy and Bess

Click here to do a Google search for the lyrics.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

By listening and then responding to multiple versions of the song “Summertime,” students will understand how songs can convey various moods. Writing about a personal summertime memory, students will try to mimic a mood from one of the song versions during a number of quick-writes. At the end of the week, students will pick one summertime memory from their quick-writes to expand on and take through the writing process. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait for this lesson is voice; as students write short five minute pieces on summertime experiences they match the mood of the song they just heard. The support trait here is word choice; by providing a graphic of various faces conveying a particular mood and mini lessons, students choose and then utilize new vocabulary words to express certain feelings/emotions.