Reflect Five

Creating characters is a fun but challenging way to engage your students. Helping them to move beyond a name and physical characteristics takes extensive thought and questioning. This guide will walk students through the complete development of characters who think, feel and act. It will help them to devise backstories and motivations by pushing them to understand the "why" behind decisions they will eventually make for their stories. Includes guiding questions, examples and templates.

Graphing and coordinate planes in writing class? Absolutely! Teach your students how to graph their writing to see whether it's alive or dying. This "heartbeat" analogy resonates with young writers who otherwise fail to see when their writing is falling flat. Utilize the "3 word column" during edits to help students revise their sentences in more interesting formats.

Are your students obsessed with the online Connections game? Use this template to create your own ... or even better, let your students get creative! Can be used for any subject and various grade levels.

Need to increase sentence fluency and variety? Are your students still relying on pronouns too much? Challenge them to manipulate their words and begin with a verb, adjective or adverb. Show them the power of a strong, short sentence to balance out those detailed sentences they have been working on up to this point. This simple activity works for any topic and might be just what you need to elevate their writing.