We’re finishing out the 2017-2018 school year by writing open letters to fictional characters.  Some of us are writing in order to pay tribute, and others of us are writing to (constructively?) criticize. Regardless of our take on the subject, we all agreed that a strong open letter has several characteristics: a clear controlling idea is presented in the introductory paragraph supporting points are made in the body of the letter, and those points are then elaborated with relevant details AND commentary the controlling idea is echoed in the conclusion, perhaps accompanied by an appeal to acti ..read more

In our Writer’s Notebooks this week, we played around with writing our own descriptions of the Phantom’s lair.  Drawing upon the noticings and author’s craft lessons from previous units, we each worked to develop a description of the lair that created a strong mood. Students had full creative license here:  their description could reflect any characterization of the Phantom they wanted to work with. Was the Phantom evil, lonely, dangerous, pathetic, mysterious, depressed, romantic, bitter…?  The choice was up to the writer. Each worked to create that chosen mood through a variety of means: c ..read more