This Lesson's Title:

Rolling with the Animals

writing original stories with action-packed descriptors

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Heidi Kerr at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The intended "mentor text" to use when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Duck on a Bike by David Shannon. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out Duck on a Bike 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 plan an original story where an animal (other than a duck) finds itself on a human mode of transportation (other than a bike).  Three other animals will react to the unusual scene.  Using the graphic organizer included with this on-line assignment, the writer will include sufficient details to end up with a well-paced and descriptive story. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is idea development; strong details that use action verbs and interesting adjectives should be encouraged.  The support trait in this assignment is organization; this writing prompt comes with a graphic organizer that will require writers to pre-plan paragraphs and story parts that have a purpose.

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 June 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 find out how to become a member of this free network, click here to visit the NNWP's webpage. You can have a link to a high-quality writing lesson sent to you every month.