This Lesson's Title:

Showing Some Creative Problem Solving

writing about an animal's dilemma from start to finish

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Lisa Larson 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 Call of the Wild by Jack London. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author, especially from pages 17-18 of the book.

Check out The Call of the Wild 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:

Students will read an excerpt from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, focusing on the character of Buck solving a problem, listening carefully to London's word choice. Students will think of their own animals with original problems to be solved. Students will then create a 3-paragraph story, detailing a problem and the eventual solution with words. Teachers: click here to read the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait for this lesson is idea development; showing (not telling) a problem and its solution with details is each writer's focus here. The support trait for this lesson is word choice; student writers will carefully choose words to show with--words that definitely try to paint a picture in their reader's head..