This Lesson's Title:

Between Repeated Catch Phrases

creating a story that "stacks" on itself and repeats a catch phrase

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by NNWP Teacher Consultant Janet Cryer at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day 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:

Judith Viorst’s story of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day focuses on the chronological organization of a very bad day in Alexander’s life.  The amusing story begins with Alexander’s morning and ends with his bedtime.  Judith Viorst weaves a catch phrase (the one about moving to Australia) throughout the story as well--another element of good organization.  This writing lesson has students write chronologically about a bad "school picture" day, using a strong introduction and conclusion, while weaving an original catch phrase in between the story's details. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is organization; writers plan for a story that has an interesting introduction and conclusion, and a story that is woven in between a repeated use of an original catch phrase.  The support trait in this assignment is sentence fluency; in between the repeated catch phrase, students will develop ideas in the form of sentences that are different from one another.

Recipient of the NNWP's
Excellent Writing Lesson Award:

Because of the quality of its resources and ideas, this WritingFix lesson was selected by the Northern Nevada Writing Project as December 2008's Writing Lesson of the Month. It was e-mailed to thousands of teachers who are members of the NNWP's Writing Lesson of the Month Teacher Network.

To quickly access all the WritingFix lessons that have been chosen as "Lesson of the Month," click here to visit the NNWP's archive. You can have a link to a high-quality writing lesson sent to you every month.