This Lesson's Title:

Emotions and
Colorful Days

uniquely capturing the emotion-filled days of our lives in short, three-stanza poems

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Sharon Berry at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The ideal "mentor text" that can be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Click here to view this book at Amazon.com.

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

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

After discussing Dr. Seuss's playful look at colors and emotions, writers will prepare to create three free-verse stanzas about days they know and the colors they asociate with them.  The interactive buttons on the student instructions page will provide writers with ideas for original emotional & colorful descriptions.  Once writers have some basic ideas written down, they will need to be encouraged to transform their simple descriptions into detailed "snapshots" through powerful verbs, interesting adjectives, and precise nouns. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is idea development; a written "snapshot" that conveys excellent details is the goal of each simile crafted by the writer.  The support trait in this assignment is word choice; carefully-chosen verbs, adjectives, and nouns are the tools that will assist writers in crafting their simile "snapshots."