Word choice is the use of rich, colourful, precise language that communicates not just in a functional way, but in a way that moves and enlightens the reader. Each year, the northern nevada writing project sponsors a huge variety of inservice classes and workshops that focus on helping teachers make 6 traits the language of their classrooms during writing. The word choice help book is an important companion piece for any student in rewards writing. Anita l archer get textbooks new textbooks used textbooks. Recently, while queuing in a dublin city cafe i saw ahead of me a harmless. Rewards reading intervention voyager sopris learning. Helps students sharpen word choice to improve writing.
Word choice 5 ways to expand your students vocabulary. Sometimes students seem so caught up in their ideas, organization, and grammar that word choice may take a backseat. Below i detail what types of amazing word choices the author uses and links to lesson plans ive written, in some cases. See all formats and editions hide other formats and editions. This handout can help you revise your papers for wordlevel clarity, eliminate wordiness and avoid cliches, find the words that best express your ideas, and choose words that suit an academic audience. So today, i give you, 10 picture books ive been using for several years in my classroom as writing mentor texts for word choice. It is part of the revising stage of the writing process. Using transitional words and phrases help to keep the reader oriented in the. In persuasive writing, purposeful word choice moves the reader to. Writing az word choice skill lessons improve students writing to make it more interesting and precise. Rewards writing sentence refinement student book anita l. All his hard work was rewarded was made worth it when he saw his book in print. Mark twain, a master of word choice said, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
The program can be used in conjunction with any language arts or writing program. If we want our prose to be rich, vibrant, and meaningful, then we need to develop a robust vocabulary. Making the right word choice makes your writing better. Word choice is an area of writing concerned with using clear, descriptive words that engage readers. How to write a book in 15 amazingly simple steps the reedsy blog.
An essential addon to your teaching toolkit, reading rewards is jampacked with powerful functionality to help teachers get their students reading. One way to tell what kind of vocabulary you should use is to read in the genre youre writing in, as it will help you to develop a sense of the vocabulary level. An author needs to be precise in his use of language in order to avoid confusing a reader. Teaching word choice is fun, and one of the easiest traits to show students how published authors use good word choice to convey meaning, mood, and tone.
In descriptive writing, strong word choice resulting in imagery, especially sensory, showme writing, clarifies and expands ideas. Blackline masters for overhead transparencies 222 leaves rewards writing. Provides strategies for sentence refinement to expand ideas to increase quality, variety, and clarity of. Reading rewards is a powerful reading log and reading incentive program that will get your students excited about reading, while it saves you time. Writers repeatedly use the same words or do not choose the most creative or effective words in their first drafts to convey their message to an audience. Online student rewards to improve performance writing. This handout can help you revise your papers for word level clarity, eliminate wordiness and avoid cliches, find the words that best express your ideas, and choose words that suit an academic audience. Teaching writing through mentor texts for the love of. The writing center word choice what this handout is about this handout can help you revise your papers for wordlevel clarity, eliminate wordiness and avoid cliches, find the words that best express your ideas, and choose words that suit an academic audience. The lack of precision in word choice can be shown in a number of. Trust me, i would so much rather be in my classroom. An awesome exercise that will improve your word choice. I like the quote from mark twain who is credited with saying that the difference between the precise word and one that comes close is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
The use of rewards undermines intrinsic motivation and results in the slower. Selecting precise words will help you increase the impact you create on your audience. Giving non food rewards helps students know that rewards dont have to involve food. Learn the words you need to communicate with confidence. Confusing use of pronouns the reader might not be able to tell who the pronoun referrers to. Workshops and rainy nights mentor texts, writing mentor. See how these invaluable lists of words help you to teach reading and writing skills. Its a fabulous picture book for the trait of word choice. Do your students struggle using strong word choice in their writing.
Biographies and memoirs are examples of factual stories. Moving on, word choice in academic writing also involves using words that are shorter and more concise than their lengthier counterparts, even though they mean the. Seuss to your students, you will want to focus their attention on word choice. Showing students the use of good word choice will open their eyes to a whole new world of writing. Questions about all types of writing are welcome fiction, technical documentation. As many teachers can attest, it can be a tad frustrating to read a students final copy and realize that while everything is structurally sound and organized, the writing itself is drab and dull, due to poor word choice. Understanding word choice means learning to write clearly, powerfully, and beautifully.
You dont want to use extremely long words for 6yearolds, but that doesnt mean you cant throw in the occasional long word in a kids book, as it helps them improve their. Just because youre writing on your restaurants website or social media outlets doesnt mean you always have to write about your restaurant. Using this book can help gold medal schools meet the criteria that all. I dont think that the word comprehensiveness is easily applied to subjects as capacious as reading and writing, frankly, but there is a great deal of useful materiel covered here for students new to analyzing and creating collegelevel texts. Marketing 50 inspiring quotes about writing from the worlds greatest authors writing can be hard, but it doesnt have to be lonely. This activity will help you to remember the importance of word choice and how it affects tone, attitude, imagery, and the audiences response. Many teachers utilize jane oconnors fancy nancy to teach word choice and target precise language. Sep 15, 2012 thursday afternoon i rushed around my classroom, planning for a substitute. To help you achieve just that, weve put together this 15step guide to how to. I usually post about picture books that i use as writing mentor texts. Maxs words by kate banks, fancy nancy by jane oconnor, the word collector by peter h. Reward meaning in the cambridge english dictionary. Students can make choices in how well they learn by helping to.
Pinpoint the object or emotion or action rather than settling for the general thing. Variety in choice of words and phrasing is critical when trying to keep readers. Well use the scoring guide to respond to samples of student work, some by very skilled writers, some by writers who are on their way, and some by writers who havent yet discovered their way of. Word choice can be the difference between writing that is alive and writing that is dead on the page. Aug 10, 20 i usually post about picture books that i use as writing mentor texts. Word choice is an important part of any type of writing especially content writing. Here is an imaginary progress report to your parent or parents explaining your work and behavior in a class. Precise selection of your words will help you be more clearly understoodin both writing and speaking. Regular readers of this blog know that i generally write posts about the craft of writing. Pioneer valley books learn to read, guided reading, common core. Scrivener is the downloadable writing software of choice for many. Pioneer valley books provides educators and parents with high quality books and other resources including guided reading to support beginning readers in the successful acquisition of reading. Some things are scary by florence parry heide, dinosailors by deb lund, the z was zapped by chris van allsbu. Todays kids are already overwhelmed with unhealthy food choices.
Appropriate word choice allows students to display their knowledge, not just about english, but with regard to any given field of study from science and mathematics to civics and history. Word choice 145 assessing student work for word choice lets explore word choice in more depth. Correct word choice creates an accurate picture of the writers topic that is both unique and easy to understand. Minilessons to help students consider word choice in their writing brainstorming alternatives developed by vicki spandel ahead of time, write this sentence on a piece of chart paper. See more ideas about teaching writing, writing words and writing. This engaging, consumable reference book supports the teacherled instruction with interactive activities and practice and serves as a helpful quick reference guide beyond the rewards classroom. Reviewed by lisa suter, assistant professor of english, metropolitan state university of denver on 3620. Easy to follow, systematic, explicit instructional model done in 2025 minute lessons teaching critical sentence writing skills. Unwanted meanings the word or words used could have a double meaning. Most teachers feel comfortable teaching word choice. Rewards plus and rewards writing voyager sopris learning. Bob books reading chart, reward for finishing a series.
When students have extra time, they can write minimessages on. Wrong word choice the word does not mean what you think it does. Writers who use specific, vibrant words in their writing achieve a number of goals, from engaging the reader to enlivening the content of their subject matter. Help me break down the words in a way that gives them meaning. This approach defines the ingredients of effective writing for students to practice and teachers to assess, equipping both parties with tools for strategically analyzing written work. Try the exercise below and experiment with your word choice. This post is geared towards the upper elementary or middle school curriculum and uses the term million dollar words when referring to word choice. Popular books to teach word choice shelf goodreads. Teaching the skills of word choice teachercreated resources and lessons. The 10 digit isbn is 1602180148 and the digit isbn is 9781602180147. The title of this book is rewards writing word choice help book and it was written by anita l.
If there is anything i hate more, i cannot think of it. Apr 29, 2012 bob books reading chart, reward for finishing a series. I love the reproducibles and the ninestep plan for integrating word choice. The effect of rewards and motivation on student achievement.
The word on college reading and writing open textbook library. Students will reflect on how an authors word choice can impact a readers experience of a text. Improving word choice is more than memorizing a list of fancy words. Learn how to improve your writing by using the right word.
The easytofollow, systematic, explicit instructional model features 75 lessons teaching critical sentence writing skills, including sentence fluency, word choice, and sentence revising strategies while giving valuable practice in writing. Teaching them to use a variety of words and to improve their word choice is another thing. Keep it simple, because your reader does not want to look up every other word. I feel lucky to be a part of the arkansas benchmark revie. So youre ready to become a firsttime author and learn how to write a book.
It is also part of a series of writing mini lessons designed for scaffolding in writing workshop. The mentor texts and some of the ideas for these lessons were expanded upon the ideas. Yes, its about how to improve your writing, but today id like to focus on a single, simple change you can make that will increase your language creativity and force you to think about the specificity and clarity of words several times a day. Author book title trait heller, ruth a cache of jewels and other collective nouns conventions.
As we write, revise, and proofread, there are plenty of common word choice mistakes to watch out for. Click here to download and print out the activity template write your own progress report. A simple yet powerful way to establish writing as important, skilled, and unique is through word choice. Once you understand these tricks of the trade, you can move ahead confidently in writing your assignment. If you appreciate the resources at this website, consider saying thank you to the northern nevada writing projectsponsors of this freetouse websiteby visiting their publication page and ordering any of. Students view a few example and watch strong verbs video to encourage them to use more effective word choices as they write. Rewards writing word choice help book paperback january 1, 2008 5. Easy and effective minilessons and activities that help students enrich and enliven their writing by leeann nickelson minilessons for lively, colorful specific language. In a way, coming up with a strong topic pays double rewards in a classification essay.
Direct instruction and focused practice that helps build essential writing skills for grade 512. Stars are used to purchase fun items to personalize the raz rocket and to create a customized avatar using the avatar builder. Word choice for creative writing quick and dirty tips. Improve your students word choice with these synonym thesaurus charts. Remember, the skill and accuracy of your word choice is a major factor in developing your writing style. With all the content they have to choose from, your followers likely would stop reading if your entire feed or website was hard sells and daily specials. Also, pay attention to how your voice changes when you borrow phrases from, for instance, cooking, fighting, dating, or sports. Patricia reilly write up a storm with the polk street school conventions. You know that youre destined for success, and this resource will help you get the wheels in motion there is endless information out there on writing a book, and with the rise of selfpublishing, it. Word choice should enliven our senses as we read the story. As you work on a paper, you choose your topic, your approach, your sources, and your thesis. Then we view my word choice flip chart to further elaborate on the distinctions among strong and weak use of nouns verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. Jan 22, 20 but i suggest you curb your use of the word, especially when its a wouldbe pronoun for an undefined noun. Word choice mentor texts that are focused on during the nnwps annual 6trait inservice classes for teachers.
Create a sensory experience the best writing creates a vivid picture in the readers mind. Sharpening word choicestudents learn to find alternatives to common, overused. Use one of these books for word choice 6 traits of writing. Visit our 6trait homepage to learn more about our popular inservice class. Word choice is a trait that shows the power of language. Word choice is an essential element for any student learning to write effectively. Guide with blackline master and poster, word choice help book set of 20, stulent. While using this fantastic book, i created a few companion resources which is a bundle of 18 lessons plans that teach the six traits of writing ideas, organization, voice, sentence fluency, word choice, and conventions and is intended for grades k5 within informational, narrative and persuasive writing. Improve writing by choosing the right word, the word that says what. Going for a cup of coffee nowadays can involve more questions than on university challenge.
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