Writing activities

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="21d005a0dvldtc.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" >PT3 Readers are Leaders</FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FF6600" FACE="Arial" > </FONT>    |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PT3 Readers are Leaders"><U>home</U></A> | <A HREF="home54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Activity Room"><U>Training Room</U></A> | <A HREF="home.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Reading Room"><U>Reading Room</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id86.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Analyzing a book with a journey to ident"><U>Analyzing a book with a journey to identity theme</U></A>   |   <B>Writing activities</B>   |   <A HREF="id87.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Using a conflict theme"><U>Using a conflict theme</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id88.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Role playing"><U>Role playing</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id89.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Asking Questions"><U>Asking Questions</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id90.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Using Visual Strategies"><U>Using Visual Strategies</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id91.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Literary terms"><U>Literary terms</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id92.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shared Reading"><U>Shared Reading</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id93.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Community Connections"><U>Community Connections</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id94.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Small group discussions "><U>Small group discussions </U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#FFCC00" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Goals:</div> <div> 1.  To improve writing skills.</div> <div> 2.  To appreciate literary style</div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFCC00" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Writing activities</div> <div> <B>Writing with Literature</B></div> <bR> <div> Writing with literature be used for three purposes:  writing to help understand literature,  practicing writing skills learned from an author, and writing pieces for an audiences.</div> <bR> <div> Activities Using Writing to Understand Literature</div> <bR> <div> Journals</div> <div>      A journal is usually a notebook in which a person writes regularly.  Sometimes the writing is an answer to a question or a prompt, and sometimes it is free-form, just writing what comes into your mind.  Usually a journal writer doesn't worry about grammar, spelling or handwriting.  The idea is just to get ideas down.   A journal can be a source of ideas for writing papers that are revised and polished.</div> <bR> <div> Response Logs</div> <div>      Response logs are a special kind of journal in which a writer notes responses to a piece of literature.  The logs are usually used for discussion or for writing.</div> <div>      If you own your own copy of a book, you may want to do your response log in the margins of the book or on post-it-notes stuck on the pages of the books.</div> <div>      You may want to develop your own symbols or shorthand for particular types of responses.  The following are some things you might want to record in your response log.</div> <div>      S=Stop=I stopped reading here to think about something.</div> <div>      L=Like=I liked this passage.</div> <div>      ?=Question=I was confused at this point or had a question.</div> <div>      !=Important=This looks important.  I think it is something I need to remember.</div> <div>      V=Vocabulary=This is a word I need to know to understand the story or that I want to add to my vocabulary.</div> <div>      F=Feelings=I had an emotional reaction to this passage.  (Describe your feeling)</div> <div>      C=Connection=This passage connected to something in my own experience.</div> <bR> <div> Activities for Improving Writing Skills Through Literature</div> <bR> <div>      If you like an author's writing style, study what the author does that is successful, and practice imitating the style.  Here are some ways you might improve your writing from studying an author's style.</div> <div> 1.     Choose a paragraph or a short passage that you like and then write your own paragraph on a different topic imitating the authors' style.  For example, you might choose a paragraph describing a person or place and then describe your own person or place using the same sentence structure and pattern.</div> <div> 2.         Examine the author's sentences.  Imitate the structure of sentences you like.  Notice the variety in the author's sentences.  Practice using the same variety in your sentences.</div> <div> 3.     Look at the choice of words the author uses-particularly nouns and v erbs.  Practice using strong verbs in your own sentences.</div> <div> 4.     Author Will Hobbs says that the key to good writing is “show not tell.”  He writes his story quickly, but then goes back and revises it so that it shows the characters' feelings and thoughts instead of telling what they are.  Look at your own writing, and revise it to “show not tell.”</div> <bR> <div> Activities for Writing for an Audience</div> <div>      If you are writing something for someone else to read, you  probably will need to write it in several stages.</div> <div>      During the pre-writing stage, you gather ideas and think about the audience and the form of the writing.  Journals and response logs are good forms of pre-writing.  You can usually find materials that you can turn into a good piece of writing.</div> <div>      Select a form for your writing.  At the end of this section is a list of forms that are useful for writing about literature.  Make sure that your form fits your topic and your audience.  For some forms such as essays or letters, you may need to find out the correct format.</div> <div>      After you find your ideas and your form, write the paper as the ideas come to you.  Most people are more successful if they don't try to think about grammar and spelling at this point.</div> <div>      After you write your first draft, read it carefully and revise it to make it as effective as you can.  Read it aloud to see if you have left anything out and if it sounds good.  Do you need to revise the style you can use to make it more interesting?  After the paper sounds good,  go back and check spelling, grammar and punctuation.  </div> <div>             Finally, copy or type the paper so that it looks good.</div> <bR> <div> Examples of forms for writing about literature</div> <div>      An imagined journal from one of the characters </div> <div>      Anecdotes and stories from your own experience.</div> <div>      Guess who/where descriptions</div> <div>      Letter to the author</div> <div>      e-mail letter to the author</div> <div>      Poems or songs inspired by ideas in the book</div> <div>      Rewrite a story as a play or a poem.</div> <div>      Letters to the editor on a topic of concern</div> <div>      Newspaper story</div> <div>      Math story problems based on topics in the book. </div> <div>      An essay exploring a literary issue in the book.</div> <div>      A personal essay about your response to the book.</div> <div>      A book review</div> <div>      Write a story of an event that was mentioned in the book but not described or that you imagine the character might have experienced.</div> <div>      Write about the characters in the story as someone else might describe them-a social worker, a doctor, or a policeman.</div> <div>      Write a letter of recommendation for college or for a job for one of the characters in the book.</div> <div>      Create a home page for one of the characters in the book.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>