This lesson was created for WritingFix after being proposed by Northern Nevada teacher Penny Sanchez at anSBC-sponsored inservice class.
The mentor text:
How I Became a Pirate is an enthusiastic tale that explores the pros and cons of being a pirate.
Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:
The writer will research an interesting job (past, present or--perhaps--even future) and prepare to write about it. While researching, the writer will obtain a list of "pro" benefits associated with their researched jobs, and "con" consequences associated with their researched jobs. Using the provided graphic organizer, students create a summary of their research that contains a strong lead , a conclusion that comes back to their lead's original idea, and a paragraph that focuses on job pros and another paragraph on job cons. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.
6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:
The focus trait in this writing assignment is organization; this writing prompt comes with a graphic organizer that will require writers to pre-plan paragraphs that have a purpose. The support trait in this assignment is sentence fluency; using subordinating conjunctions will require that students create longer, flowing sentences.
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 April 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.
Because of the quality of its resources and ideas, this WritingFix lesson was selected by the Northern Nevada Writing Project as April 2008's Writing Lesson of the Month. It was e-mailed to thousands of teachers who are members of the NNWP's 
