An Overview of this Lesson:
This lesson celebrates how carefully chosen words in a crafted phrase can create an image on a reader's mind without specifically naming the precise image. Choosing a fairly specific noun and the perfect adjective or two can show the exact image to a reader that the writer intended. This showing skill is demonstrated in the mentor text: Show; Don't Tell: Secrets of Writing.
This is also a writer's notebook-friendly lesson. As students create the writer's notebook page assigned here, demonstrating authentic showing skills, this lesson will also introduce them to the idea that their writer's notebooks can be a place to capture skillfully-written small ideas (that could become larger ideas during a future writer's block) and that those ideas can be playfully shared with classmates. When you have a good writer's notebook program in place, students love to share with each other.
Focus Trait/Objective for this lesson: Idea development, especially "showing versus telling," is the focus skill being worked on here. You can certainly talk about word choice as well, especially focusing students in on specific nouns and image-provoking adjectives.
Interacting with the Mentor Text:
Show; Don't Tell: Secrets of Writing (by Josephine Nobisso) is not your typical picture book. It's not really a story so much as it's numerous pieces of good advice from a real author to student writers. If you are thinking this book would make a great read-aloud and a captivating story, then you might be disappointed with it; however, if you're looking for a book with direct, playful advice to writers that can be used to guide multiple writing lessons, this is a great text to have on hand. The lesson on this page shows just one of many lessons that can be inspired from this book's student-friendly advice.
Near the beginning of this picture book, the author talks about the importance of balancing specific nouns with the perfect adjective or two. You don't want to flood the reader with too many adjectives, and you don't always want to simply tell the reader the image you're thinking of; when showing, you are providing just the perfect amount of words so that you convey an image, and your reader should be expected to do some of the work to picture the idea you're writing about.
There's a series of fourteen adjectives Josephine Nobisso provides in her text which attempt to put an image in the reader's mind. Share that list with your students. Ask them, "What do you think the author is trying to make you visualize by providing these fourteen descriptive words?" The mud-loving descriptor often aims some students right at the correct answer (a pig), but you'll have plenty of students who see other images based on the other thirteen descriptors. The author is trying to prove the point that an abundance of adjectives doesn't necessarily paint the same image on every readers' minds. Adjectives are useful when showing, but a good writer knows how to carefully select just one or two.
The author doesn't want to simply tell you she's describing a pig, because that's too easy on everyone's part; she wants to show you pig, and she wants the reader to participate in discovering that image as they read her words. Ultimately, she shares a fairly specific noun (pet) with two carefully-chosen adjectives (mud-loving and intelligent) to create a phrase that pretty much shows everyone the image she intends her reader to see: a pig.
And it's true. Share the phrase a mud-loving pet that's intelligent, and most of your students will identify a pig as the answer. She hasn't told you the answer; she's used a small amount of showing words to help almost everyone arrive at the same image. This is a good writing skill students should learn early on so they can hone their showing skills all year long.
Ask students, "If you were showing a pig, what different words would you have chosen?" Let students talk, craft original phrases about pigs, and share the best ideas out-loud. Record the best ones on a chart for later reference.
Brainstorming Nouns that are Nice:
The goal of this lesson is for students to create a writer's notebook page that shares "show-y"noun phrases for four different things the writer has determined are nice. The lesson provides a brainstorming worksheet where students can practice the skill with many different nouns, then self-select the four showing phrases they think they did the best work with; these are to go in the writer's notebook with illustrations..
 Pass out this two-page brainstorming sheet (pictured at right). Students should first go through all the lightly-gray shaded boxes and name nouns that answer the different questions; don't let them do the bottom half of each box until they have come up with nouns in every gray box. On the backside, there are four gray boxes at the bottom that allow the student to come up with a different category; your class can decide on these categories together, or they can work on creating them in small groups. Challenge students to try and write unique (and correctly-spelled) nouns in the gray boxes; if everyone has the same nouns on the brainstorming worksheet, then the "riddle" part of this lesson won't be very challenging...or fun.
After the gray boxes are filled in, do a demonstration similar to the one Josephine Nobisso did for the word pig. Share a very specific noun (perhaps from your own brainstorming sheet), then do a think-aloud where you choose two interesting adjectives and a less specific noun that--when put in a phrase together--can paint an image in reader's minds of the original noun. Remember the mentor text's a mud-loving pet that's intelligent. Remember how it never names the original noun: a pig
And remember an adjective doesn't have to be a single-word that can sit in front of a noun; an adjective can be a phrase or clause that follows a noun; that is intelligent is a clause that follows the noun pet and modifies it just as a single-word adjective might. If all your students' phrases follow the adjective, adjective noun pattern (like intelligent, mud-loving pet would be), this could become dull. It's a nice opportunity to teach students to use adjective phrases and clauses after their nouns.
Here are some teacher-made examples from WritingFix's Webmaster, Corbett Harrison. Feel free to use these, but your students would surely appreciate it if you had some personal examples from your own life to share.
My nice or good vacation activity:
Snorkeling
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My nice or good restaurant:
The Olive Garden |
My showing phrase:
colorful, peaceful
fish-spotting |
My showing phrase:
commercialized Italian food in a crowded place |
My nice or good book character:
Harry Potter |
My nice or good fruit:
Orange |
My showing phrase:
scarred wizard
with a true heart |
My showing phrase:
thick-skinned,
citrus snack |
Students should be given enough time to create their showing phrases for both sides of the brainstorming worksheet, and also to talk about them with writers so that ideas can be revised before finalizing the four "best showing phrases" your students will put in their writer's notebook.
Establishing a Riddle Page in the Notebook:
 Show students what the "riddle page" will look like before there are any riddles added to it. Our webmaster photographed his, which you can click on at right to see in larger form. For this riddle page, students will conceal illustrated "answers" underneath four Post-its. Beneath the Post-its, in a small box, the students will write their four best showing phrases, so that when they show their page to a classmate, said classmate can make a guess to what nice or good noun hides underneath the Post-it.
Pass out four 3" x 3" Post-its to each student, and have them trace each Post-it, leaving room beneath the square to write their best showing phrases from their brainstorming worksheet. Students should write, "What/Who am I showing with these words?" on the four Post-its, as seen in the example above.
 Stress correct spelling as students copy their four best showing phrases in the boxes beneath the four Post-its. Stress once again that the name of the original noun's name and the adjectives nice and good should not be in their showing phrases.
With the words written down, have students remove the four Post-its and place them aside temporarily, so they can illustrate and record the original nouns from their worksheets in the space the Post-its will cover. Remind them there is a small space at the top of the Post-it that is sticky and will stay stuck to the paper; they should attempt to not write or draw in that small space that will be covered by the sticky part.
Our webmaster (Corbett Harrison) suggests you teach students to use Mr. Stick as their illustrating tool for their notebooks or journals; pictures and words underneath the Post-it notes make the exchange of riddle pages that much more fun. Anyone can draw, especially if the standard set by the teacher is a pretty simple stick-man. At Corbett's personal website, you can freely access all of his Mr. Stick materials.
When illustrations have been added, it is advisable to reinforce the Post-its' stickiness with a piece of scotch tape to guarantee it will stay stuck to the page. Students will be lifting these Post-its a lot, and the Post-its' gum is only so strong.
Sharing/Guessing Riddle Pages:
Have students move around the room and sit with a fellow classmate; they are to exchange notebooks and do the following:
- Make a logical guess what's underneath each Post-it before lifting it;
- Explain to the writer how they arrived at the right/wrong answer for each riddle;
- Rank the other classmates' four riddles against each other, choosing which was their best showing phrase, which was second best, etc.
- Have their partner, then, take a turn at guessing their four showing riddles.
Repeat the riddle-guessing process several times. On a different day--one where you need to do a review of showing skills--you can have students partner up with different people.
As often as possible, remind your students of the showing technique this mentor text set them up to think about. To quote the book's author:
"There are no 'bad' adjectives! To be useful to a writer, an adjective does not have to be fancy. It just has to be right."
--Josephine Nobisso, Show; Don't Tell: Secrets of Writing
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You might also quote Ralph Fletcher when teaching/reviewing this lesson; he is the author of our other Mentor Text of the Year for 2011-12, a book that totally complements the ideas in Show; Don't Tell.
 "Details create the images in your writing, but be careful you don't go overboard and bury your reader in mountain of trivia. Instead, try to dig up the odd details that will stick in a reader's mind."
--Ralph Fletcher, Live Writing: Breathing Life into your Words
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