Writing: Showing, Not Just Telling

I told my kiddos that I would share some of the "showing" sentences that they came up with on our blog. We have been using mentor text (books that wonderful authors have written) in our classroom to identify great "showing" sentences.  We are working on being experts at writing exciting, not boring sentences.  We read Night Noises by Mem Fox and listened carefully for exciting, descriptive sentences.

Afterwards, we did a structure called Centerpiece.  Everyone did they best thinking and changed my boring sentences into exciting ones.  Here are a few examples:

I was nervous. (boring)

I was so nervous my sweat could fill a pool. 

I was so nervous I hid behind my mom's legs.

The dog ran fast. (boring...)

The dog ran so fast I fell on my face in the mud when I caught him.

It was windy.

It was so windy that I blew all the way to China!

I was cold.

I was so cold I just turned into a big, giant icicle.

I was scared.

I was so scared my scream was like an earth quake.

I was so scared my knees were knocking.

I was tired.

I was so tired I could fall asleep even when someone was screaming in my ear.

There were TONS more of great sentences.  We didn't put our names on our lists since everyone was adding to many lists at their team, so I don't know whose sentences I just wrote.  I am so excited for our writing time next week.  I can tell that our stories are about to get far more exciting! 

Happy Reading (and writing!)

Mrs. Lafferty