Learning to Write By Writing

     I was spending my Sunday afternoon on Teacher's Pay Teachers looking for resources to teach comma placement in sentences.  I have to admit I dread teaching isolated skills like this.  I know I need to because it is part of our standards.  My students will be tested on it and their results will determine if I keep my job.  But stopping creative writing in order to fill in a bunch of worksheets just seems like a step in the wrong direction.  Because of interventions for all students in Reading and Math, we have only had thirty minutes for Writing for the past several years.  In that time we have to fit in Spelling and grammar, as well as creative writing.
     As I was looking through the PowerPoints, task cards, games, and endless worksheets created by my hard-working peers, I couldn't help but remember how much fun my students had writing similes and metaphors to dazzling pictures of beautiful butterflies and weird-looking caterpillars (see previous post.)  I kept asking myself: How can I make a skill like commas more meaningful to my students and keep them writing?
     Then, suddenly, it hit me:  teach writing by writing. I quickly dug out my Common Core standards and looked at what comma rules my students are expected to know. Then I thought of ways students could do authentic writing while still practicing what they need for the standards.  Surprisingly, I found I could do both at the same time, if I was creative.  For example, my students need to know how to use commas to separate nouns in a series (Jeff took an apple, chips, and a sandwich for lunch to work.)  I decided to have the students brainstorm a list of potential Halloween costumes, such as a princess, Luke Skywalker, or The Hulk. I used Halloween because it is topical and interesting to the students.  Then they had to write a sentence for each costume idea, listing at least three things they would need to complete that costume.  For example:
To be a princess for Halloween, I would need a tiara, sparkly high heels, and a long pink dress.
Need to practice commas to set off a list of adjectives?  The Halloween costume idea still works:
My princess costume is sparkly, girly, and beautiful.
Halloween ideas also work for commas after interjections.  I projected a list of fun interjections from http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/list-of-interjections.html.  The kids were raring to go and couldn't wait to share their sentences.
    I hope my post gets you thinking about how you can ditch the worksheets and get kids to practice those grammar skills by actually writing something memorable.

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