Reaching Reluctant Writers With HUMOR!

Transcription

1 Reaching Reluctant Writers With HUMOR! Page 1 of 8 A workshop for teachers by Author/Illustrator This handout is the property of Introduction/Overview Why is it important to learn to write well? Our 5 senses are receptors. They are input devices. We have a need for output as well. That is, a need to communicate with other people. The better our communication, the better we will be able to express our thoughts, needs, etc. We have many forms of communication Oral spoken words, song Non-verbal we can gesture or change facial expressions o Draw emotions Instrumental music can convey info or emotions o Brahm s lullaby Symbols/images/sculpture o Writing comes under this category

2 The importance of relevance Why do I have to learn this stuff? o Football players practicing running through tires o Karate Kid Wax on, wax off. How many of your students will become professional novelists, poets or playwrights? How many will spend some portion of each day writing? o What will they be writing? Distinguish between the kind of writing that will enhance the quality of their lives (personal poetry, etc.) and the kind of writing that is more utilitarian. Both are important and both can be done well. Page 2 of 8 Why is writing short & light so effective? It recognizes the demands on teaching time It gives the students an opportunity to write something with a beginning, a middle and an end It gives the students LOTS of practice writing It allows teachers to focus on specific aspects of writing o Adjectives, metaphors, grammar It is not overwhelming to the students Writing is a series of false starts, but kids HATE to re-write. Short writing gives students an opportunity to start over several times without the feeling of major failure or lots of wasted time. It lends itself to humor and cleverness which makes writing delightful and fun. It ties-in well with other forms of communication such as drawing, drama and music. Fewer opportunities to make punctuation, grammar and spelling errors. This allows more focus on the actual writing content. Writing is a more complex task than reading. Students will be able to read and comprehend longer sentences and paragraphs before they are able to create well-written sentences and paragraphs. By creating lots of short and light writing, students develop confidence in their ability to write well.

3 Page 3 of 8 Applications to the Language Arts Framework Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, Viewing o Not just words on paper o Rhythm, rhyme, repetition o Drama, music, multimedia help us to internalize language Warm-ups to loosen-up those creative brain muscles Identify the following: Nursery rhymes: BBBSHYAW? HDSOAW MMQCHDYGG? Book titles: HPATSS TCITH H Song titles: HBTY TTLS FJ Identify the following: 3 w on a t 3 b m (s h t r) 88 k on a p 13 s on the A f 29 d in F in a L Y 8 t on an o 2000 p in a t 8 p in the ss 60 s in a m For more of these, visit: Mnemonics My very excited mother just served us nachos (planets) King Philip can only find green slippers (biology) Lucky cows drink milk (Roman numerals) Austin eats an aspirin after noodle soup (continents) How I wish I could calculate pi (math) May I have a large container of coffee? For more mnemonics visit: Idea! Have kids research acronyms such as SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging), LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)

4 Crazy 8 s What kind of 8 do farmers need to water their crops? What kind of 8 do people do when they talk? What kind of 8 do people do when they work together? What kind of 8 do animals do when they move from place to place? What kind of 8 happens to a seed when it sprouts? What kind of 8 belongs to a creature with no backbone? What kind of 8 is a chimpanzee? What kind of 8 do bears do best? Page 4 of 8 Now try it with C What kind of C is very polite? What kind of C is in its baby stage? What kind of C likes to be alone? Rhyming Pairs Two words that rhyme. Example: FAT CAT. Create riddles using rhyming pairs as the punch line. Do a Google search on hink pinks for more. Hinky pinky for two-syllable combos (cellar dweller) and hinkety pinkety for three-syllable combos such as (president s residence). Rewrite the nursery rhyme Don t use the letter T and don t change the meaning. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

5 Tongue twisters Say them 3 times each and say them FAST! Another technique: Who did what when where why (foreign language tongue twisters) Page 5 of 8 Writing for real Add an adjective Keep adding adjectives to describe the object (pyramid shape) o Hat, Brown hat, Soft brown hat, Big soft brown hat o Students develop their ability to choose and use adjectives Advice Fairytale characters write to Dear Mother Goose for advice o Requires students to understand conflicts, problems in literature o Can be applied to more demanding literature (Shakespeare, Mark Twain, etc.) Autobiography for a book you have written. o Gives students an opportunity to pick important elements of characters Brochure Understanding features vs benefits o Helps students understand the difference between fact and opinion Caption the cartoon o Helps students learn to write tightly. Classified ad to sell your bicycle o Students must write descriptively and persuasively Contents List from memory the contents in your backpack. o Write a story containing all objects. o Builds recall and awareness skills. Contradictions It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Describe the object You re from another planet what is this thing? o Describe the object by it s characteristics, not its function Directions Write directions from your classroom to somewhere on campus o Students learn to be precise in their writing Fun facts Anthropomorphize 3 objects and have them list 3 fun facts about themselves o Food item, something from nature, an invention o Students learn to write non-fiction from the first person

6 Page 6 of 8 Headlines Rewrite the headlines. o Be brief, be clever make them want to read the article. o Students must understand, recall and summarize what they ve read. How-to Write instructions for how to do something. o More practice in precise writing In other words Translate the hard-to-understand text - Big word nursery rhymes o Government documents, Shakespeare, medical insurance statements, car seat installation guides o Using synonyms builds vocabulary Lists Create a Top 5 or Bottom 5 list o Students express their opinions in this exercise. Menus Create a menu for an unusual restaurant o Road kill restaurant, cafe for aliens, liquid diet only, no sugar Metamorphs Change one word into another, one letter at a time o Interim words must be real words Metaphors (simple comparisons), Similes (like or as) and Analogies (point by point comparisons) o Life is like a box of chocolates o My old pair of jeans are like Movie titles Create alternative titles for 3 movies/videos/tv shows you ve seen/rented No E Write a paragraph (or even a sentence) without using the letter E. Obituary Write an obit for a fictional pet. o Gives students an opportunity to write character descriptions Onomatopoeia o My father s car is very old, it s just a piece of junk o The music I like best is Rock, I play it in my room o I walked into a Pet Store and what I heard was this

7 Page 7 of 8 Oxymorons Jumbo shrimp, half naked, act naturally, turned up missing, almost exactly o For more do a Google search on oxymorons. Pangrams Sentences that use every letter of the alphabet. (Example: The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.) Paralanguage o Shhh..., He he he...tsk!...sigh...uh-huh...(exasperated sound)...uh-oh! Predictions Write your predictions o Kids can predict the weather, best movie of the year, #1 pop song, cafeteria food, price of gas, etc. for a specific date. Question Have students share questions they d ask of book characters o Example: Goldilocks, did you know you were trespassing and stealing? Rewrite the rhyme o One, two vacuum the zoo. Rube Goldberg device Video example: Run-on Write the longest run-on sentence you can in the time allotted Six word stories Perfect robbery. Perfect getaway. Rotten traffic! He used to be a millionaire. One bowl of spaghetti. Two forks. Slang dictionary Compile a dictionary of currently popular slang words Slogans Create a slogan for your classroom for the year. See ad slogan samples. o Good ideas for drawing signs, banners Sequential stories o Each person adds one word and one word only. Teacher ends the sentence. Storyboards Storyboard a familiar fairy tale in 6 panels Timelines Create a timeline of your life Tom Swifties Adverbial puns! Twitter summaries summarize a book, story, play or movie in 140 characters or less. Which means, therefore. o State a fact, explain what it means in larger context, and draw a conclusion.

8 Page 8 of 8 Are you an aspiring children s book author or illustrator? Visit Mike s web site for info about how to get started: Also try the web site of the Society of Children s Book Writers & Illustrators: Do you know a young person that has a gift for writing? Stone Soup has great links for kids who want to have their work published. Visit and click on Links.