These lessons are exactly like my No David Writing Lesson that I wrote about early. Both Me Too! by Mercer Mayer and The Escape of Marvin the Ape by Caralyn and Mark Buehner are cute picture books that contain a lot of little events but very little detail about each event.
After reading either book, you could ask children to choose one event from either story and then revise what was in the book by adding more detail. Students could explode the moments, add dialogue, or add thought shots. (I wish I could give proper credit for those revision ideas but I don't remember which teaching book I read them in. I would guess Ralph Fletcher. He's awesome!)
This kind of activity makes for a nice prompt write because it provides students with a variety of main ideas to choose from instead of just one topic. Also, students don't have to come up with the seed idea (Lucy Calkins), they just need to fill in all the details.
There are a ton of books that can be used in this manner. All of the No, David books are possibilities and a lot of Mercer Meyer's Little Critter books would work too.
Banish Boring Words
Leilen Shelton
Leilen Shelton has created an awesome mini-thesaurus to use with your students. Its 48 pages contain 26 different word choice lists, ranging from "Action Verbs" to "Sound" to "Easy/Hard" that you can refer to or refer to and photocopy to share with your students.
I've used bits and pieces of the "Action Verbs" portion to discuss word choice with my students. I look forward to using more of the book in the upcoming weeks.
Word choice is a neat writing trait to teach because it helps students make their own writing more interesting but it also teaches them vocabulary words that help them better understand other writers' stories.
This book is well organized and easy to use. I would recommend it.
Saturdays and Teacakes
by Lester L. Laminack
Paintings by Chris Soentpiet
In Saturdays and Teacakes the storyteller describes a typical Saturday spent with his grandmother. The two spend every Saturday working together outside, eating lunch, and always end the day by making teacakes.
Saturdays and Teacakes reminds me of Thundercake by Patricia Polacco. In both, children spend charming days with their grandmothers baking. The writing is filled with great details that help remind you of your childhood. The major difference between the two stories is that the young boy in Saturdays and Teacakes doesn't have any fears to overcome, while in Thundercake, the young girl does.
I can't take any credit for finding this story. I found it in I Can Write Like That!: A Guide to Mentor Texts and Craft Studies for Writers' Workshop, K-6. Per their recommendation I used it to teach emotional endings. It has a great ending that you can use to discuss literal and figurative language.
In addition, I definitely see myself using it again to teach personal narrative and adding specific details. The details that went into making the teacakes, from making the batter to the dialogue between the two, were phenomenal.
I loved the book and have added it to my Amazon wish list.
Published: 2004
Locations: School Library, Amazon
