Zak's Action Plan

Action Plan!

Here is a list of things I’m thinking about doing in my classroom:

Write with students

Found Poem—Have the students all write a phrase that describes something that happened to them between waking up and arriving at school in the morning. Put the lines together on the board. Have the students rearrange and pick a title. I may do this on the first day. You could also put the lines on sticky notes so they could visually arrange them more easily.

Situational Dialogue—Have the students write an action on one half of a piece of paper and an argument topic on the other. Split in half and shuffle. Have every student draw an argument and an action. They must write a dialogue-heavy paragraph that illustrates two characters arguing over the selected topic while doing the selected action.

Alliterative Poem—When teaching alliteration, have the students write a very alliterative poem such as “Peter Piper”.

Copy/Change Poetry—Give students the framework for a poem and an example of a poem created from the framework. Allow them to fill in the blanks, play with the blanks, and rearrange the poem into their own voice.

Shifting POV—Have students write the start of a short story. After they have written the first draft, force them to change the point of view.

Use the phrase “Make it different” instead of “Make it better”

Focus less on errors in papers and more on content

When writing a paper, collect the first draft and make them write the second draft without the first draft. When they write the third draft, allow them to pull from both.

Respond! Sheet—Instead of doing a reading quiz or boring prompt, give the students a list of ways to respond: parody, imitation, commentary, summary, etc.

Remind them that prompts are suggestions only

In the revision process, have the students go back and change all helping verbs and linking verbs to more dynamic ones.

List all the different ways of saying “walk”.

Have the students read their rough drafts aloud to me.

Expression Cards—Hand out small pictures (playing cards) and have the students write details from their picture, giving the listener clues as to what is going on in their picture

“If you wish to be remembered write something worth remembering or do something worth writing about” --Mark Twain—

Read MAD Magazine when discussing parody

Play Pigs and Dogs by Pink Floyd and listen for Animal Farm references

Ask the students to list all the reasons that they aren’t writers.

Cultural Literacy—Have the students list ten people that they think it is essential to know and list the reasons why

Have the students design and script their own level of Hell

Choose Your Own Adventure—Have students write a Choose Your Own Adventure story, where decisions affect the path that the story will take.

Pictures—Bring a picture of something important to you. Write a poem describing what is going on in the picture.

Images from Poetry—Have the students draw in the margins TWO images that stand out from a poem that they read. (This is another way of responding to a peer’s work, other than verbally)

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” Students write their own updated lyrics to the song

Say “What did you notice?” instead of more specific questions

Music and Poetry—Play certain types of music and have the students describe a person they see in the music. Play a different piece and have them describe a place. Then have them writing a story combining those two elements.

Professional

Possibly present at Write-to-Learn conference

Present at the Nixa professional development day

Submitting some of my work to Missouri Teachers Write

Reading List

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. LeGuin

On Writing by Stephen King

The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim