04 March 2013

Day 80 / 102 - Writing 'Dress-Ups'


Part of our IEW (creative writing) curriculum includes adding 'dress-ups' to everyday, ordinary writing.  Here is a recent activity I completed with my children.

We started with the sentence - The soldier went into the tent.

1. Change the verb into a stronger verb.

2.  Add a clausal starter to give us more detail about what is happening.

3.  Add adjectives.

4. Add an adverb.

5. Add an who/which adjectival clause.

In case you can't read his writing, my son's new sentence was - Since he felt fatigued, the young soldier, who was injured, painfully advanced into the medic tent.

Of course, there are even more ways we can revise this sentence, but part of the activity is to familiarize my children with their parts of speech and stylistic dress-up techniques.  Plus, this activity is always worthwhile as I see their creativity displayed.  We repeated the activity several times and the sentences became even more elaborate as we see the solider slaying dragons, firing cannons, escaping Nazis, and saving lives.

1 comment:

  1. I love this post! I am always trying to find ways to improve my kids writing! This looks like it just might fit the bill! Thanks!
    www.4littlepiglets.blogspot.com

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