1) Pobble 365
2) DIY MFA
3) Once Upon a Picture
4) Think Written
5) Literacy Shed
6) Creativewritingprompts.com
And here is a good blog post from EduTech4beginners that detail a list of top websites to use when writing.
I saw this list of creative writing prompts online and thought I would share them with too.
1) Pobble 365 2) DIY MFA 3) Once Upon a Picture 4) Think Written 5) Literacy Shed 6) Creativewritingprompts.com And here is a good blog post from EduTech4beginners that detail a list of top websites to use when writing. I wrote earlier, in the Pobble 365 post, about the lesson I helped to teach yesterday. We were working on getting the students to focus on how to build the tension or suspense in their writing. The teacher showed this clip and then asked the students to rewatch it and focus on what elements of the story helped to build the tension or suspense. They shared with their partners the different reasons they thought the scene was suspenseful and then they talked about how they could use elements of this scene in their own writing. This was done before looking at the writing prompt on Pobble 365. Here is the clip Pobble 365 is a wonderfully useful site that has a variety of writing prompts - one for every day of the year! This is fantastic as a writing prompt for NAPLAN or for just as inspiration for creative writing.
You can use the writing prompt that just appears (the one for that exact date) when you go to the site OR you can access the calander (pick a day) at the top right of the screen and choose a day and start writing. Yesterday I worked in a year 4 classroom where the students used the prompt on May 2nd. They were working on the 7 Steps to Writing Success - tightening tension skill and they wrote a portion of a story that showed the development of tension or suspense. The students were so enthusiastic about the writing prompt and it really inspired some great written responses. I hope you will find it to be a useful tool to use. Recently I have been delving into the work of Pie Corbett and his innovative way of engaging students with texts prior to writing and as part of the writing process. The title of his method is 'Talk for Writing' or 'Talk4Writing' (I've seen it referred to in both ways). This immediately peaked my interest as I am all for 'floating on a sea of talk' and getting more talking in the classroom. Engaging students orally with any work (reading comprehension, writing and math) really helps to deepen their understanding of a task.
Pie Corbett's method revolves around 3 major teaching areas - Imitation, Innovation and Invention. Imitation involves listening, joining in and getting to know texts well and internalising text structures and sentence patterns. Innovation comes in the form of taking a well known text and using it as a basic structure but changing small elements of it (adapting and borrowing story structure and sentence patterns). Invention is making up new stories using the knowledge of the text structure and sentence patterns learned in the imitation and innovation stage. This seems fairly similar to elements of Accelerated Literacy. As Imitation is the first part of the process I thought I would share some things I had learned about this part. It involves the students listening to a teacher reading or more importantly 'telling' a tale (or non-fiction text), then the students joining in on the retelling over and over - with the students eventually being able to recite the text to others in the imitation stage. I have found some Imitation games that would be perfect for the introduction of a text and the familiarising of a text with students - and many of these games can be used with EAL/D students as fun activities that help them thing more deeply about a text and allow them to gain a better understanding of the concepts of a text. Click here to access these. The Foxes and the Marshmallow Tree is a short story I created on a website called Storybird.
Storybird is a website that helps people (adults and students) write and create interesting narratives. Storybird gives you access to a variety of beautiful illustrations and often these illustrations come in a series of similar pictures (see my story above as an example of a series of illustrations). It is very easy to choose a series of illustrations and then create a narrative around the pictures (this is what I did with my short story). Students can also search for illustrations using key words - e.g. dog will bring up pictures of dogs, so if they are writing a narrative and there is a dog they will be able to find an illustration that will support their text. As well as this, students can submit their own artworks (which will need to be scanned and put as an electronic version into their account). I think Storybird is a great way to engage students in narrative writing, to inspire ideas and to release creativity. It can also be a great way to model narrative writing to a group or to the whole class, as you could display the images on the smart board while you write. My favourite thing about Storybird is that it is a free website! If you, or your students, do create a story using Storybird I would love to see it! Lately I have been doing a bit of work on pronouns with one of my students who mixes them up. If you have a student who mixes up pronouns or doesn't use them correctly perhaps they can take a look at this clip. I have used this clip many times in the last few years. It is great for looking at parts of a sentence (subject and predicate) as well as looking at past tense verbs. Beware - the song is a bit of an earworm! This is an activity I like to do with Stage 3 when looking at narratives. I don't know where the idea came from, but one day I had a group of year 5 ESL and low achieving writers in a small group and I had to come up with an interesting narrative activity on the spot....this is what I thought of. I have done the same activity numerous times since and it has been successful each time. There is a chance I may have heard of this activity somewhere (seen it on the net...?) and I just can't remember but somehow I came up with this.
The lesson begins by looking simply at the orientation of a story and what needs to be in the orientation. We discuss the aspects of what makes a good orientation (description of characters, settings - using a variety of interesting adjectives) and we look at the 'Who, what, where and when. Then the students and myself begin to write just the orientation paragraph of a narrative. Once everyone has finished I ask them to pass their books to the person who is sitting to their left - I also pass my story and get a new story. We each take a minute or two to read the orientation we were given. Then we look at what a complication involves. We discuss how to 'stretch out' the complication so it isn't described in just one sentence. We discuss how the different characters might be feeling and we also discuss the fact that the problem should not be solved in this paragraph. The students then write a complication for the book they have in front of them (not their original book!). Once everyone has written the complication we pass the narrative to the left again, with each person getting a new narrative. We read through the orientation and complication of the new narrative and then we discuss the beginning of solving the problem. I listen to what each problem is and then we discuss ways the problem could start to be solved (but not solved completely!). We discuss using descriptive language and adjectives to make it interesting for the reader and then we write the first sequence of events paragraph. Once again, when we have finished we pass the narrative to the left and read the new narrative to ourselves from the beginning. Then we discuss how the problem needs to end up being solved completely in this paragraph. We discuss different ways the characters could once and for all solve their problem. Then we write. The books are passed again. This time the students read all the way through and have to come up with an ending for the narrative. They need to tell us what happened for the characters after the problem was solved. Did their character learn a lesson? What was that lesson? Did they all live happily ever after? If so, what were they doing - give some detailed examples etc. Then we conclude the narrative. The books are passed for a final time and the next person who gets the book is the reader. Each person takes a turn to read the narrative that is in front of them aloud. The students enjoy this bit the most as they get to hear different bits they have written in numerous narratives. The students usually enjoy this activity. It breaks the writing cycle down into an easy to understand way. It stops the students from rushing ahead and skipping details and it keeps their interest as they are getting a new narrative each time. They seem to enjoy 'fiddling with' or 'messing around with' other people's characters and narratives more than they do if they wrote the entire narrative themselves. Last year I had the chance to participate in the Focus on Reading Training. It was a great program that gave some valuable lessons and ideas for teaching reading comprehension. There are many, many activities that I have taken from the course that I do with my EAL/D students.
One of the most valuable things about the course was the book 'Revisit, Reflect, Retell,' by Linda Hoyt. This activity comes from this book. Fact or Fib is always a fun comprehension activity that Stage 2 and Stage 3 students really enjoy. I don't know if it is because they get to make up lies, or if it is the use of the post-it notes....but whatever it is they really like it! Fact or Fib is great for any type of text (informative, imaginative or persuasive). The students read a text, or have it read aloud to them. They then come up with some facts from the text and make up some fibs about the facts in the text. I usually aim for three of each. Once they have drafted their three facts and three fibs I hand them a large sheet of paper and six post-it notes. They have to write the heading 'Fact or Fib' at the top of the sheet and then write one of their drafted fact or fib onto each post-it note. The post-it notes get stuck to the sheet under the heading. Then they lift the flap and write 'Fact' under the facts and 'Fib!' under the fibs. These are then displayed around the room for visitors or other students to come and learn something about what they have read. An example of this activity with a narrative could be based on a character description: e.g. Mr Twit has a beautiful wife - Fib! His wife was very ugly. and Mr Twit has an awfully disgusting beard with bits of food stuck in it - Fact! His beard was full of sardine's tails and mouldy cheese. An example of this activity with an informational text might be: Many Chinese people migrated to Australia during the Gold Rush - Fact! Many Chinese people did move to Australia during the Gold Rush and The Eureka Stockade was a really long battle that went for 20 years - Fib! The battle of Eureka Stockade only lasted one day with the actual attack only lasting 20 minutes. An example of this activity with a persuasive text could be: One reason students don't like wearing their hats in the sun is that it will give them sunburn and cancer - Fib! Hats will protect you from sunburn and cancer. One reason students like wearing school hats is that it keeps them cool in summer - Fact! Hats do help to keep the sun off your face which will make you cooler than if the sun was on your face. |
Mrs McNamaraI am an EAL/D teacher currently teaching in a primary school within the Newcastle area of NSW, Australia. Categories
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