Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts

Monday, November 29, 2021

Once Upon a Time by Sheryl Green



Genre: Informational writing

Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Chapter 1 gets you right into the writing. The author of this book gives ten writing prompts and then does something wonderful. She asks two or three questions about the prompt to help move the writer forward. That is one thing my students often struggle with. They choose a prompt but don’t know how to move forward.

Chapter two deals with moving forward when you get writer’s block. She offers a lot of hints and tips to help you with this problem. Then you get ten more writing prompts.

Chapter three dealt with the elements of a story. You know what I am talking about. You create a world, and then populate that world with characters you have created.  Then you are given more tips and finally ten more writing prompts.

Chapter four is where the real work begins. You’ve written a story and this chapter teaches you how to make it better through editing and revision. This of course is followed by more tips and then ten more prompts.

This book is beneficial for children and adults alike. I can see me using this in my classroom at school. I highly recommend this book

Saturday, July 7, 2018

My Favorite Place


Mark Levine over at Mindful Literacy wrote a post titled "Your Favorite Place".  After reading his post I decided to follow suit and write about my favorite place. I've had several places that I would consider my favorites over the years. But every July since last year I will think about Manasota Key. Summer before last I followed my friend Joy Hawkins on Facebook  as she spent three glorious weeks at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key and wrote about her experience.  Since I live in Florida and I've been on both coasts, I have to say I prefer the west coast more than the east coast. So last year I was thrilled to learn that I was one of five teachers in Florida chosen to spend three weeks, like my friend had, at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.
My cottage sat on the beach.
I had a view from my writing desk of the bay to my right across the two lane road, and the gulf to my left.
I accomplished more with my writing while I was there. However, there was something even more important that I accomplished. I learned how to put away school and relax just for me.  I have always struggled with this.  I took so many pictures while I was there. When I am becoming anxious and non-productive I pull up those pictures and IMAGINE that I am on that beach once again.
It didn't matter if I watched the sun rise, the sun set, the storms roll in. It didn't matter if I walked with the turtle lady looking for new  turtle nests or sat quietly  and almost alone on the beach and listened to the waves crash. I was relaxed. I have found that when I can not physically go somewhere, that sometimes pictures will conjure up those happy memories. So I ask you, what is your favorite place to go and why?

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

The Creativity Project: An Awesometastic Story Collection



Genre: Writing
Source: I purchased a copy

This is a book I will definitely read over and over again. Colby Sharp asked writers to submit two writing prompts. He then sent those prompts back out to the authors. Each other was asked to pick one of the two prompts someone else had written and write. There were no guidelines. The prompts were small cartoons, poems, words, sentences. The stories and poems that came out were wonderful. I read through it the first time in a couple of hours. Now I want to go through and mark those I want to use with my students. I also want to have my students do something similar in the classroom.  This book is awesome. I definitely recommend it to anyone young or old who loves to write.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Story Prompts that Work by Carly Berg


Genre: Writing
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

This is a book of 52 writing prompts that can be used in a variety of ways. Some of them can be used for any age, while some are for the more mature audience.  I am going to talk about a couple of my favorites and how I, as a teacher, will use them with my students.

Prompt #3 – Unreliable Narrator  will work well in my classroom. We talk about unreliable narrators when we read a story about a dog who has been sold and really does not understand the true reason why he has been purchased. The situation of an unreliable narrator can make for a very humorous story as the students find out. I feel that I can help them better understand this by having them write a story with an unreliable narrator.

Prompt #6 – Choose a Story #1, #36, and #49  Is a great idea.  You have a first line, then choose a line from Setting, Main Character, and Situation.  The ones listed here may be a bit much for my middle school students but this is a wonderful idea and a wonderful way for me to come up with some writing prompts for them.

Prompt #18 – Twisted Fairy Tale #1 and #46  is something I do with the last unit I teach each year. We talk about fairy tales, fables, myths, legends and other traditional stories. They are required to take the story and tell it from another point of view, change the setting and time period. So they may take the story for Red Riding Hood and tell it from the Wolf’s perspective. It could be set in New York City in present time.

Prompt #19 – Objects  is one I will twist a little. Instead of going around the house and grabbing six objects that will become a list of words in a story. I would take objects and put them in a bag and have students pick from the bag to get their list of words.  This would be especially fun if we are studying a specific genre, for example ‘mysteries’ and they have to write a mystery story using those objects in their story.

Prompt #24 – A Picture is one I use every year. I find a variety of pictures and put them on my board and students may choose one or more to write about.


There are a lot of fun writing prompts here that can be done straight from the book, or you can put your own twist on them. One thing I really liked was that the author wrote example stories so you could get a better idea of what she was talking about. I can foresee this as creating hours and hours of fun writing.