This Lesson's Title:
Little Toy Friends
...or tales my teddy bear never told me
This original writing lesson was created by NNWP Teacher Consultant Regan Ringler Hartzell. |
T his on-line writing prompt is based on the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. Before writing to this assignment, students should hear and discuss the poetry of this great poet.
Click here to learn more about this poet.
If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library. |
Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources:
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Click here to open and print "The Dumb Soldier" on an overhead transparency.
Click here to open and print "Little Boy Blue" on an overhead transparency. |
Step one (sharing the published model): Print copies of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem "The Dumb Soldier" and Eugene Field’s "Little Boy Blue." Share both poems to the students. Discuss with the students how the toys children played with in the 1800’s were different from the toys children have today. Ask the children why toys such as metal soldiers and cloth toys were popular during this time. Talk about how young children had fewer toys during this time period and how important their few toys were to them.
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Ask the children to name a favorite toy and explain why it is a favorite. Encourage the inclusion of toys given as baby gifts that they have had for a long time and why that toy is important to them. (Perhaps a favorite grandmother gave them the toy or the toy is one they sleep with.)
Tell the children that each of them will have a different attachment to their toy and this is their opportunity to include Voice in their writing in how deep that attachment is.
Step two (introducing student 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. Encourage the students to talk about the idea development in each poem, and then to talk about how voice was accomplished by the writer.
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Step three (thinking and pre-writing): After you have read and talked about the poem(s), have the children choose two of their favorite toys and two matching settings. Then, have the children use a scrap piece of paper and list the five senses: Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste, Sound, and write short sentences or words to describe what the sense was in each setting. Children may also use pictures at this point and add words and details later on the graphic organizer. Have the students share with a small group what they have written down and take suggestions or changes. Using the attached graphic organizer, have the children plug in an introduction to the toy character and the setting followed by each of the five senses the toy used in the setting. Children should be encouraged to add detail to each line after they have the basic ideas on the graphic organizer.
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Step four (revising with specific trait language): 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.
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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.
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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.
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Learn more about author Robert Louis Stevenson
by clicking here.
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