Welcome to HIT—How I Teach….In this episode, I am thrilled to bring you some insights in to how to teach descriptive writing for middle school (and on into high school!) students. Specifically, I teach how I teach students to write descriptive paragraphs about their first few minutes in a jungle. And even more specifically, how to write descriptively using all five senses.
This short one-week project is chocked full of learning—because a student can’t write a piece that has elements they have never been taught!
So I dig into the elements of the descriptive project that our students need in order to write this jungle “story” well:
- Using all five senses to describe what you see, hear, taste, feel (touch), and smell.
- Using exact words to show the magnitude of your jungle.
- Using active voice rather than passive voice.
- Using verbs rather than adjectives.
- Using the provided sample to learn what to focus on.
- Much more!
This is literally a print and go lesson—all element lessons are there, all brainstorming and list making spaces are given. No guess work. No wondering what to do or say to teach this!
(You will get all of the lessons that go with this HIT, so you can use the Teacher’s Notebook over and over again to teach any descriptive writing project for fifth through tenth grades!)
Of course, just like every lesson in my one-month downloadable books and my one-semester Meaningful Composition books, this one also has the invaluable sample paragraphs!
And for your convenience, How I Teach…. is available as a podcast (follow along in your TN sheets for that week) and a Youtube video (with Power Point containing the same as the TN)!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher’s Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog
Master (continually updated) Teacher’s Notebook downloadable booklet
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel
How I Teach Podcast
