This Lesson's Title:

Overcoming a Personified Fear

using transitions to move a reader through an original
three-part story

This lesson is featured in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's remarkable publication:
The Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Guide

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book There's a Nightmare in my Closet by Mercer Mayer. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out There's a Nightmare in My Closet 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:

After mimicking the transitions used by Mercer Mayer in There's a Nightmare in my Closet to talk about an original fear, students will then plan to write a three-part story. Student stories will a) introduce us to the fear they will eventually overcome, b) explain the circumstances that led to them want to overcome the fear, and c) show how the the fear was conquered. Student stories should be organized and original. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait for this writing assignment is organization; the variety of transition words used in the first step of this lesson should be discussed thoroughly, and similar variety should be encouraged in students' three-part stories.  The support trait in this assignment is idea development; everyone has had a fear of something, and this assignment asks students to reflect on their own thinking and experiences in a creative way.

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 February 2009'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.