Dynamic Mini-Lessons for Teaching Writing
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Deliver 10 Mini-Lessons
Trait of Ideas: Stay on topic with titles
Demonstrate how to highlight and check each sentence against the title to verify it’s on topic.
Trait of Ideas: Develop paragraphs
This same concept can be taught at any grade level—just use different anchor papers.
Watch the complete mini-lesson video (above) and then access all the related resources (below).
After revealing the original and revised “Spring Break” examples, guide students to try adding legs to undeveloped ideas.
Pet Care Example | School Dance Example | Team Support Example
Add sentences to undeveloped ideas using sticky dots.
“Spring” Examples
Primary teachers can motivate students to write more by allowing them to switch pen colors and write “Colorful Sentences.”
PDF | Smartboard Notebook | K-1 Student Examples
Trait of Word Choice: Utilize action verbs
View the entire 15-minute mini-lesson.
Mini-Lesson Resources
PDF | Smartboard
ABC Chart Poster | Word | PDF
Smartboard | Promethean | Google
Trait of Word Choice: Show, don’t tell
Develop students’ ability to write descriptively and vividly.
Introduce a list of feeling words.
Replace “telling” words with “showing” details.
Consider cutting up the Let Your Voice Be Heard poster to note the “showing” details on the back sides.
Create action-verb phrases. | Writing-Time Handout
Magic Coloring Book Visual Trigger
Trait of Organization: Connect with transitions
Review with students the function of a transition—to merge the reader from one idea to the next.
Trait of Voice: Play with perspective
When teaching perspective, reveal the same topic or issue from varying sides.
Download the 3-Day mini-lesson outline for teaching perspective.
Reveal the same situation told by four characters in Voices in the Park.
Download 4-slide PowerPoints created by former fourth grade teacher Deb Conley of Fairview Elementary (Sherwood, OH) and her students.
Challenge students to write about content-area concepts from a unique perspective.
“Chicks,” by a second grader
“Dear Miss Mitochondria,” by a seventh grader
“Good-bye Winter, Hello Spring,” by a second grader
Each crayon color offers a different perspective of his life in The Day the Crayons Quit.
Fourth grade teacher Kristin Turner from South Creek Elementary (Indianapolis, IN) shares examples of inanimate objects writing to their student owners.
Trait of Ideas: Go from list to draft
Teach students how to move from a pre-write list of words and details to a fleshed-out first draft of sentences.
Trait of Conventions: Insert prepositional phrases
Most prepositions tell the reader where something is positioned.
Emily Dunbar’s “Preposition Song”
Opening lyrics
Supersize sentences by adding spider-legs.
Another writing task could include “Prepositional Phrase Scavenger Hunt.” Use a busy scene like these images from archived Highlights magazines.
(Download all six as an 11×17 PDF or click each JPEG image.)
Trait of Conventions: Punctuate dialogue
Remind students that the purpose of all conventions, including punctuation marks, is to aid the reader in understanding the writer’s message.
Purpose of Punctuation | Lessons that Change Writers by Nancie Atwell
Early dialogue is put into speech bubbles as seen in Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse.
Encourage students to weave dialogue into pictorial writing using the Speech Bubble Template.
Trait of Ideas: Elaborate with definition details
For every topic-specific vocabulary word students include in their writing, they can insert an explanation or synonym. This improves the word choice and demonstrates a sense of audience.
Incorporate definition details using this 3-day mini-lesson outline.
