Each lesson plan offers suggested readings to demonstrate one of the Six Traits of Writing.

Each lesson offers a writing experience emphasizing on of the Six Traits of Writing

6Trait Writing— Word Choice and Organization (grades K-4)

Lesson in Word Document

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? is in rhyme. You might want to read it through once and then read it through again to collect the rhyming words. Or you might want to read it and stop before the second rhyme of each couplet so the kids can predict the rhyming word. Either way leads to a discussion of rhyming word choice and of rhymed couplets.

Writing idea—Word Choice

On Kidspiration there are SuperGrouper shapes of kids. In the picture library under Everyday, there are clothes and food as well as other everyday things similar to the rhymes in the book. Using this would take some planning. I put the SuperGrouper of the boy on one side of the screen and a text box on the other. As I put things on or next to the boy, I put the word and a list of rhyming words in the text box next to it. I would do this as whole group with the projector to have some control over made up rhyming words. I changed the color of some of the clothes—“red” was easier to rhyme than “jacket” or “purple.” In the lab, you could leave this group pre-write up while kids typed their own poems in the style of Jesse Bear What Will You Wear? Or you could write a group poem in the style of Jesse Bear.

Organization: Grades K-6

As you read Jesse Bear What Will You Wear? aloud, notice that it is organized by time of day. This is one way to sequence a piece of writing. Also notice the repeated transition, “Jesse Bear what will you wear, what will you wear…”. This works well for poetry. Is it used in prose?

Writing Idea--

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? is organized by times of day. Students can brainstorm what they do in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night. (This is a practice of time words, too.) Younger kids can illustrate what they do in each time and write a word or a sentence under each picture. Older kids can make a rhymed couplet for each time of the day. Try a repeated transition.

Wild Wild Sunflower Child Anna

    by Nancy White Carlstrom Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

Lesson in Word Document

6Traits (Grades K-4): Ideas and Content

Wild Wild Sunflower Child Anna is about a young girl’s experience playing in a field alone. She could have been lonely or scared or timid. Instead, she is fully immersed in what the day and the field have to offer. Jerry Pinkney has captured the essence of this book so well in his illustrations.

As with most of Nancy’s books, the text is short. It can be shared in it’s entirety in about 5 minutes. But first:

Activity:

Begin by showing students the pictures. Do not read the text. As a class, ask the students to tell you what they see in the pictures. Write the ideas on the board. Letting them know the title, see how the story develops from the visual images presented.

 For K-2, write a story together based on the visual images.

 For 3-4, write a story individually or in small groups based on the ideas brought forth from seeing the pictures.

 Read the text of Anna and compare the class/group/individual stories to the one that Nancy wrote.

Light (Stories of a Small Kindness)

        by Nancy White Carlstrom illustrated by Lisa Desimini

 6Traits (Grades 3-4): Voice and Organization

Lesson in Word Document

Light is a collection of seven short stories from cultures very different from our own. Nancy White Carlstrom has been to all of these places, worked there, and experienced small kindnesses. She is hoping to show through these stories that it doesn’t take a lot, sometimes just a word or two, to make a person feel comfortable or cared for. I have traveled the countries of Haiti and Mexico with Nancy. In places where we didn’t speak the language, know the customs, or look even vaguely like anyone else, it was the small kindnesses that kept us going. (Sher Ross)

Read Miracles of Isabela, pages 8-13.

Ask:

Who are the major characters in the story?

Did you feel Pedro García’s fear when he comes realizes the problem is bandits?

The “good guys” are not always brave and the “bad guys” are not always bad. Does that change the story?

What else made you feel something with these characters?

Write about a time when someone surprised you by being kind. It may have been a stranger or a brother or sister. Possibly a teacher or neighbor was once unexpectedly kind to you.

Or maybe you surprised yourself by being kind to someone you didn’t know or thought you didn’t like. Write about that.

Be sure to include how it made you feel. Try to keep the element of surprise in the story.