Today's writing lesson

The Angry Teacher and the Mad Dash to Class!

For probably the 30th time, I did my "Don't just tell - show," lesson today for 5 of my classes. (Creative writing gets it tomorrow.) It's called the angry teacher lesson. In order to demonstrate the difference between telling and showing when you write, we discuss the sentence "The teacher was angry." Subject, dead verb, adjective. Dull. I then act out the following sentence, loudly and with props. "The teacher slammed a dictionary to the floor, threw an eraser, tipped over a chair, and yelled 'I'm not going to take this any more!" After they settle down, we talk about strong verbs and concrete nouns now they create word pictures. I then give them a challenge. In 7 minutes, write a very short story that starts with "I made a mad dash to get to class on time." They have to write about a desparate trip from one end of the campus to the other, an action scene full of strong verbs and concrete nouns. I play the Mission Impossible music. Everyone writes. Days like today make it all worth it, but my voice is tired.

Also, I wasn't on the map and I'm pretty sure I wasn't "benchmark aligned." I don't care. I made some students like writing today.