1.

Writing About Cause and Effect

"At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating
the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you
might call it the 'what ifwhat then' approach to writing and
illustration." Chris Van Allsburg
- Where to start? Often, kids have a hard time figuring out
what to write about. Share this Chris Van Allsburg quote as a
lead-in to exploring cause-and-effect relationships to
generate ideas for writing.
Lesson: Chain Reaction! (Whole Group)
Get students inspired to brainstorm ideas using the "what if
what then" approach by involving them in a whole-group
game. Everyone sits in a circle. One student starts
- off a story with a statement (the cause). The next person
adds the effect. The effect now becomes the new cause. The
next person adds an effect and so on.
Example:
1. My books are heavy.
2. I dropped them.
3. Amelia tripped over them.
4. She knocked over the trashcan.
5. Trash flew everywhere!
6. The teacher slipped on a banana peel.
7. She knocked over the book cabinet.
Lesson: Cause-and-Effect Comics (Art Integration)
Have your students create a simple comic strip by folding a
blank sheet of paper in half three times to make eight boxes.
(To create digital comics, you can use bitstrips.com.) Invite
students to draw a character performing some action in the
first box. Then, have them think "what if" and "what then?"

for the remaining panels. For every action, there is a

reaction. Students can sketch a sequence of events in the
boxes. Next, they can edit and polish their comic strips or
use the rough comic as a visual outline to begin writing a
story. Their comic doesn't have to be beautiful. They are
creating thumbnails to help them figure out what they want
to write about and how their story will flow. The sketches will
help visual learners piece together their story.

2. Creating a Character
"A good writer is always a people watcher." Judy Blume
- Constructing your characters' personalitieshow do they
act?
Lesson: Character Detective (Inference Skills)
Collect a stack of pictures of everyday people by tearing out
pages of magazines or printing photos from a site like
Humans of New York or Faces of the World. Have each
student choose a picture, or distribute them randomly. Invite
students to study their pictures. Explain that they are going
to use these pictures as a basis for a character in a story.
Ask: What do you infer? What is the person doing? How old is
he or she? What does the person's facial expression tell you?
Have students make a list of traits for their characters both
inferred and imagined using this organizer. Then, challenge
them to write a one-page story about their characters. Later
have students share their pictures and stories.

3. What Makes a Character a Hero?

"Courage is found in unlikely places." J.R.R. Tolkien
- Lesson: What Does a Hero Look Like?
Using chart paper, ask students to name a person (real or
fictional) that they consider to be courageous. Next, ask:
What qualities make someone courageous? Do the
individuals they chose share similar traits? Look at the list. In
some cases, the individuals they chose as heroes don't
match up to the characteristics we traditionally identify as
heroic. Circle these names and talk about unlikely heroes.
Then, have students work in small groups. Hand out a slip of
paper to each group with an unlikely hero: a 90-year-old
great grandma, a Chihuahua, a 4-year-old younger brother, a
waiter in a restaurant With only 10 minutes to work,
challenge students to think of a story in which their
character would be a hero. Afterward, come together and let
each group tell their quick story.

4. Writing Scary Stories

"I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the
monsters loose." Stephen King
- Lesson: Monstrous Stories
Challenge students to create a story with a terrifying
monster! In order for readers to cheer and support the main
characters, their characters must be likable. Ask students
what they think Mr. King means by the quote. Then,
challenge students to make up dynamic characters that
encounter a strange paranormal creature. How can they
create sympathy for their characters? Is their creature nice
or villainous in the end? They decide!

5. Creating the Setting

"There's always room for a story that can transport people to
another place." J.K. Rowling
- Lesson: Transport Jar (Social Studies and Math
Integration)
Different locations are written on pieces of scrap paper,
folded up and placed inside of a jar, the "transport jar."
Locations could be Fiji, Disney World, the Mojave Desert, New
York, Antarctica, Tokyo. Students pull out one of the pieces of
paper and write a story using the setting they randomly
chose from the jar. Students must research their setting.
Who or what lives there?! What is the vegetation and climate
like? Is it a remote area or does it attract many tourists? Are
there any famous landmarks there? What do people like to
eat? How do they dress? If you are using real places, have
students use Google Earth to find their locations. Then, to
integrate math into this lesson, have the students choose a
landmark in the area they chose and find the area and
perimeter of it! If the setting they chose is imaginary, have
the students sketch out an area and perimeter for a makebelieve landmark. Try this video tutorial.

6. Time Traveler Adventures

"Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to
explore things that bother you in contemporary times."
Suzanne Collins
- Lesson: Time Traveler (Social Studies Integration)
Start a class discussion by asking "What is one thing you

wish you could change about the world?" Record student

answers on chart paper. Then share with them the quote
from Suzanne Collins. Talk to them about the way setting a
story in the future gives the writer a chance to imagine how
our world could be different. Next, tell them that they are
going to be time travelers. They can imagine that they have
taken a trip in a time machine to an era when the problem
they identify is now fixed or the change they want has now
happened. Have the students write a short story about their
adventure. Then, encourage children to try to solve the
problem in today's world with a different kind of writing.
Have students research ways to make a change. Is there a
local, state or national official to whom students can send a
polite, formal letter? Engineering integration: To further
develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, have the
children construct an imaginary time machine. You can put
students in charge of different tasks: research, design,
construction, etc. They can use any recycled materials they
wish. Keep the time machine in the classroom to use with
additional history lessons all through the year.

7. Using Vivid Words

"We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all
day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch
should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important."
Eric Carle
- Teach your students how to engage readers with interesting,
descriptive and specific words (vivid verbs,
interesting adjectives and precise nouns) that paint a picture
with a lesson in copywriting.

Lesson: Persuade Me! (Student Ad Campaign)

Have students choose a healthy food that they love. Their
goal is to persuade someone to want to try it. First, have
students brainstorm words that describe their food. Then,
have them use a thesaurus and see if they can find
additional words that would make their food more
tempting. Afterwards, have student groups do the storyboards
for a mini-commercial. They can come up with a brand name
and a jingle and try persuade their audience in a few
sentences to purchase their food item. Did their choice of
words make a difference? What if they used mundane
words? Would their peers still be interested?
Older students could try to persuade someone to watch their
favorite movie, try their favorite product (hair, clothing,
sneakers, etc.), or eat at their favorite restaurant. Then, they
create an advertising campaign, highlighting reasons why
their choice is worth seeing or testing.

8. Using Music as Inspiration

"Where words fail, music speaks." Hans Christian
Andersen
- Music can be a great inspiration for writing. Try listening to
to a variety of different genres during free writing time over
the course of a week.
Lesson: Musical Inspiration (Math and Art Integration)
Listen to a variety of different genres of music. After each
song, ask students what emotion the song is trying to evoke.
Was it an upbeat melody, melancholy tune or angry track?

Did the lyrics or the music move them? Next, put students
into groups and challenge them to write song lyrics. The
catch: Groups are randomly assigned an emotion by the
teacher! They come up with the genre for their tune: pop,
folk, rock, jazz, hip-hop, etc. Can their peers guess the
emotion they wanted to express without background music
to accompany their lyrics? Afterward, talk about how word
choice can help readers empathize with the emotions
expressed in their writing.
To integrate art into this lesson, have students create playlist
autobiographies. Students choose five to seven songs to
which they have a personal collection. Have students write a
paragraph about each song and design an album cover.
What would their album cover look like?

9. Show, Don't Tell

"Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us
to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead
of telling us a thing was 'terrible,' describe it so that we'll be
terrified. Don't say it was 'delightful'; make us say
'delightful' when we've read the description. You see, all
those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are
only like saying to your readers, 'Please, will you do my job
for me?'" C.S. Lewis

- Writers can show without telling by using dialogue,

describing the actions of their characters (facial expressions,
voice, and body language), utilizing the five senses and
incorporating figurative language.
Lesson: What's in the Bag?! (Inference Skills)
For homework, students are given a brown paper lunch bag.
They choose one item from home to put inside their bag. On
the outside of their bag, they write three descriptive
sentences that will kindle their peers' senses. Their goal is to
have their peers guess what is inside their bag. If their peers
have trouble guessing, then they weren't descriptive
enough! They want to avoid stating the facts: what is inside
their bag. Instead, they want to provide their peers with a
detailed description of what it looks, feels and possibly
smells, sounds or tastes like.

10.Sense and Nonsense Stories

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a
necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life
through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do,
and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." Dr. Seuss

- Spark students' imagination to compose fantasy stories that

are in and out of this realm.
Lesson: Bad Day
Read the book Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss or show
thevideo. Have students think about a day when everything
seemed to go wrong. Then, challenge them to rewrite the
events of that day with fantastic exaggeration. This activity
will enable students to "laugh at life's realities." Students will
discover that there is no wrong answer when it comes to
their own imagination!

11.Observing the World Around You

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world
around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden
in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in
magic will never find it." Roald Dahl

- Lesson: Magic Journey

Take a walk around the school. Encourage your students to
use their imaginations. For example, if the slide suddenly
came to life, what would it say?! Lift up a rock, what lies
beneath it? A kingdom of pill bugs! This will help students
look at the world around them and transform everyday items
into a component of fantasy to write about. With their
journals and pencils in hand, they can jot down things they
see that inspire them. Then, they add their own twist to
create a fictional piece of writing. This activity will
demonstrate that students can get inspiration from the world
around them.