Writing Activities for Every Month of the School Year

For language arts and English teachers in grades 4-8, here is a unique year-round collection of more than 340 reproducible, writing process activity sheets to help you capitalize on your students' natural interest in holidays and special events while reinforcing your writing skills curriculum and meeting the diverse needs of your students. All of these ready-to-use writing process activities begin with clear, easy-to-follow, student directions and focus on the development of word, sentence and paragraph skills for writing essays, letters, journal articles, and creative writing of various kinds. The activity sheets are conveniently organized into ten monthly sections. September through June, and are printed in a big 8 1/4" * 11" spiral-bound format that folds flat for easy photocopying as many times as needed for individual or group use. Each month includes: *Brief lists of historical events and famous birthdays of the month, such as these two entries for September: September 2, 1945: VJ Day-- Allies and Japan sign World War II surrender agreement on board battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay September 12, 1913: Jesse Owens, American athlete, hero of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin *Monthly table of contents for quick location of appropriate activities, including titles, skills emphasized, and related curricular areas. *More than 30 reproducible writing activity sheets that guide students through the writing process from prewriting (A), to rough draft (B), to final copy (C), like these sample activities for November: Last Leaf on the Tree (paragraph writing) Athletic Words (sentence writing) World Without TV (essay writing) War and Peace (nouns adjectives) Vote for Joe! (journalism) Funnybone Tickling (paragraph writing) A SenseAtive Place (sensory language) Dangerous Journeys (creative writing) You'll find these stimulating, carefully planned writing activities help relate writing to what is going on in students' lives and world at the time of the assignment. Moreover, the clear, student friendly directions make the activities useful or independent as well as teacher-directed lessons.