Thing 5d

I don't always want to be slamming other people's ideas about getting students motivated, but a lot of what I see are time-wasters being promoted instead of actually getting the child to produce something. In the real world, the boss tells you to write a report/email/introduction of a new concept/product, etc., then you'd better sit right down and get to it! I think that a lot of students think of using technology as "fun," but then they're missing the point of proofreading for mistakes and all when Word will do some of that for them.

From Google Reader, I was looking at Lesson Plans to Promote Writing by Dawn Dodson. I liked the idea of writing a story featuring a younger child by interviewing and then creating a story around that child's life. Not everyone has a younger brother/sister and we can't really take a field trip to the elementary school, so I guess interviewers would have to get creative about meeting the child for the initial interview. Her next idea is collecting information about a classmate and making graphics and other nonsense for an oral presentation, actually avoiding much of writing. This is ok if you're doing some kind of journalism unit, though. She doesn't actually say it's for studying journalistic writing or for speeches, although she does emphasize giving a speech at the end.

The next lesson isn't one of hers and it appears to have more building opportunities to actually get the kids writing an essay. Basically, take a picture, talk to the students about writing a hook/lead to get the readers' attention, then share what they wrote. There is more discussion with the students reading an intro with the lead taken out and creating new leads. Then, this goes to developing their own introduction paragraphs. Seems like a good building activity to get them to understand the concept. Good practice and opportunities for discussion before they have to do it on their own.

The last one is about persuasive writing using climate changes and environmental concerns. This could be changed to political issues depending on the students, imo. Some students will obviously want to write about things they feel strongly about not related to the environment. The problem with this particular lesson plan is that the writer did not consider students preferences and instead lists a lot of background resources for the teacher to become familiar with climate issues and share with the class. Otherwise, good ideas, but maybe have the students do their own research and then write a response based on current events they actually care about.