This Lesson's Title:

The Vocabulary Fashion Show

writing a script for an imaginative fashion show that uses interesting transition words

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

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster by Debra Frasier. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster at Amazon.com.

Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :

Pre-step one (before sharing the published model):  Ask your students what, if anything, they know about fashion shows. Talk about how models wear unique clothing and walk up and down a runway while a narrator/announcer talks about what the models are wearing.

Break students into five groups. Assign each group to brainstorm a different category from this brainstorming worksheet: nouns, verbs, adjectives, -ly adverbs, and transition phrases. The words and phrases they brainstorm must be words one might hear said at a fashion show.

Show a copy of the brainstorming worksheet on your overhead, which has a few examples to get students' brains going. Give students five minutes to brainstorm the word category you have assigned them. Create a class list of "Fashion Show Vocabulary" by having groups share their best examples until your chart is full.

Save this class brainstorm. If you know about Barry Lane's wonderful book--51 Wacky We-Search Reports, which we use all the time in Northern Nevada--you know there's an assignment in the book that has students create fashion show scripts for concepts they are studying in all curriculum areas. By saving this brainstorm, you will have a wonderful word-bank to visit again the next time you are teaching anything that could become a "Wacky Fashion Show." Buy this book by Barry Lane! It's the best book under $20.00 that you'll ever bring into your classroom.

Step one (sharing the published model):  Debra Frasier’s book Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster offers the reader a delightful word choice adventure.  Fraiser introduces lively adjectives, strong verbs, precise nouns, risky words, alliteration, and word play as we experience a fifth grader’s week at home sick, while she tries to complete not only her vocabulary homework but also an extra credit assignment.   Upon Sage’s return to school, she discovers that she has not completely understood the meaning of some of her vocabulary words.  In the end, Fraiser has her young character create a costume for the Vocabulary Parade that fully expresses her new understanding of one very difficult word. Debra Frasier uses every inch of space, including the endpapers and extra pages, to inspire the creative use of vocabulary words.  

Suggests Sandy, this lesson's author, "Teachers should take several sessions to read this book aloud.  During the first read aloud session, stress the many interesting and unusual words that are bold printed and explained by Sage.   During the follow up sessions, call students’ attention to any of the many word choice sub-skills incorporated in Sage’s description of her week in bed.  I would also suggest that a separate session be spent reading the book with a special focus on the extra credit assignment introduced on the copyright page.   This writing assignment is intended to be used as a follow-up only after several readings of Miss Alaineus."

For this writing assignment, students will be imagining that--instead of a Vocabulary Parade (like in the book)--they will be creating a Vocabulary Fashion Show. Each student will be taking a word from a vocabulary list and asking, "If this word was a model at a fashion show, what kind of outfit would he/she be wearing, and how would he/she move up and down the runway?"

Assuming the voice of a fashion show announcer, students will be writing a 5- to 10-sentence script that describes their vocabulary word on the runway.

Step two (introducing models of writing):    In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson.  The groups will certainly talk about the organization, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you might prompt them to talk about the word choice as well.

• We're looking for student samples for all grade levels for this lesson!  Help us get some, and we'll send you free books for your classroom!  Contact us at publish@writingfix.com for details.

Step three (thinking and pre-writing): The interactive button game on the Student Instructions Page is designed to help your students choose interesting words that would make interesting "fashion models" in your Vocabulary Fashion Show. In truth, students should choose words from actual vocabulary lists from your classroom, but if you don't have a vocabulary list, the words in the interactive button game might inspire your student writers.

Once students have chosen a vocabulary word, use this graphic organizer, which has them draw their word as a "fashion model" and choose words from the class brainstorm that might apply to how they think their fashion model would move up and down the runway.

Then have students write a short script, in the voice of a fashion show announcer. Ultimately (but not yet), students will team up with other students who have written scripts about other vocabulary "fashion models," and the teams will combine their scripts to create a complete fashion show that can be performed for the class. For now, students need to know that their five- to ten-sentence script must describe (in the voice of a fashion show narrator) what the model is wearing and how he/she is moving up and down the runway.

Allow students to write, sharing "golden lines" out loud as you walk among your writers and look over their shoulders.

Step four (revising with specific trait language):  One tool for revision is provided below.  To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts.  Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5."   Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings.  For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.

• Sheet of 6 Organization Post-It Notes
• Sheet of 6 Word Choice Post-It Notes

Step five (editing for conventions):  After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor.   If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers.  With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it.  The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.

Step six (publishing out loud):   When they are finished revising and have second drafts, team your students in groups of four or five to create a complete "fashion show." The sudent groups, combining their four or five scripts, are to a) decide what order the models will come in, b) add creative phrases to transition between the different models, c) rehearse their show, allowing one student to announce while the other students become the actual models, d) perform their scripts aloud, perhaps even in costume.

Interested in publishing student work on-line?  We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original descriptions at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers.  This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.