This Lesson's Title:

Between Repeated Catch Phrases

creating a story that "stacks" on itself and repeats a catch phrase

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by NNWP Teacher Consultant Janet Price at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The intended"mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :

Step one (sharing the published model):  Teachers should stress, as they read this picture book aloud to the class, what the author has done well in this story.  Says Janet, "In Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Judith Viorst has chosen to organize her story chronologically from the time Alexander gets out of bed in the morning to the time he goes to bed at night.  Throughout his day, Alexander has many bad things happen to him.  Viorst starts the story with an attention grabbing introduction, jumping right into Alexander’s bad day.  The title of the story and Alexander's catch phrase are repeated throughout the story – another organization tool.  She finishes the story with a satisfying conclusion – Alexander realizing that everyone has a bad day from time to time – 'even in Australia.'"

Ask students, "If it was school picture day and you wanted to look your best, what terrible, horrible, no good and very bad things might happen to you?" Brainstrom as a class, and create a class chart of all the bad things that would happen on school picture day.

Tell students, they will be creating an original tale of a fictional bad picture day. If they need further inspiration from a mentor text (and if you have time), share Margie Palatini's Bedhead, a great story about school picture day gone bad.

Step two (introducing models of writing):    In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson.  The groups will certainly talk about the organization, since that's the focus of this lesson, but you might prompt them to talk about the sentence fluency as well.

• We're looking for student samples for all grade levels for this lesson!  Help us get some, and we'll send you free books for your classroom!  Contact us at publish@writingfix.com for details.

Step three (thinking and pre-writing): The interactive button game on the Student Instructions Page is designed to get your students to think up an original "catch phrase" for their stories. Alexander asked himself the question, "Why shouldn't I just move to Australia?", and his catch phrase was born.

Students need to create their own catch phrase, then plan to use it three or four times in the telling of their "Bad Picture Day" stories.

The graphic organizer below is designed to challenge your students to plan a story between repetitions of their original catch phrases. Students can then draft their writing on the two-page drafting sheet, which comes with an embedded organization checklist for them to use after they have written an entire first draft.

• Graphic organizer for this lesson
• Two-page drafting sheet with organization checklist

As students work on their conclusions, challenge them to refer back to their catch phrase in their last sentence(s) without simply repeating the catch phrase another time. Refer to the conclusion in Judith Viorst's book for inspiration

Step four (revising with specific trait language):  One tool for revision is provided below.  To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts.  Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5."   Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings.  For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.

• Sheet of 6 Organization Post-It Notes
• Sheet of 6 Sentence Fluency Post-It Notes

Step five (editing for conventions):  After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor.   If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers.  With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it.  The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.

Step six (publishing for the portfolio):   When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block.  Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here.  Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.

Interested in publishing student work on-line?  We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers.  This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.