In this last week of summer vacation before school starts, my writing students and I turned our attention to the beach. As Jersey girls, we know the shore well and can draw on our rich experiences to create vivid descriptive images.  For our final assignment of the summer, I thought I’d slow Maddie and Violet down and have them delve deeper into descriptive storytelling. Elementary writers tend to rush through the most exciting parts of their stories. They sum up big events in a single sentence. I wanted the girls to focus on exploding a small moment by using sensory details, strong verbs, and showing, not telling, the characters’ actions and emotions.
Category: Vocabulary
Creating Calm: Mindful 8 Poems Inspired by Maine
Since I know August is the calm before the Back-to-School storm, I thought I’d select some of my favorite Maine photographs and write Mindful 8 poems to accompany them. As I wrote them, I was struck by how peaceful I became. I concentrated on nature and tried to distill the essence of its beauty with spare words. This is becoming an important practice for me, and it also helps to alleviate writer’s block.
Empowering Girls Through Poetry
This week, the girls and I return to poetry for a respite. We are still revising our fantasy stories, but needed a little spark of energy. Since the school where I teach is a school for girls, in fact it is the oldest girls’ school in New Jersey, I am keenly aware of the need for raising confident and resilient girls. Â
Something Magical: Three Elements of Fantasy Writing With Children
Children love fantasy. Their minds are young and open to outrageous ideas and imaginative wonderings. Fantasy also helps them deal with stressful situations and allows them to feel empowered. This week with my summer students, I focused on three core elements of writing fantasy stories: portal transitions, living statues, and magic rules.
Sparking Vivid Language and Poetry with Visual Prompts
Because students often struggle to create vivid imagery out of thin air, they frequently fall back on clichés or stare blankly at a white page. However, using a concrete visual prompt, such as a photograph of a girl splashing under a backyard sprinkler, can instantly unlock their imagination. This image helps student to tap into their own memories, stretch their vocabulary, and express themselves through poetry.
Visual Prompts to Teach Plot Structure: Ocean Bubble
This week’s teacher-student collaborative writing went to the beach. I shared an image of a giant translucent bubble sitting on the edge of the shoreline. The photo serves as launchpad for another creative writing journey designed by my third and fourth-grade students. I was hoping to engage these reluctant writers with a magical image that they could use as a blueprint for storytelling. My intention was for students to learn to see narrative structure not as a rigid set of rules, but as an expanding world of possibilities.
Inner Peace at the Garden Shop
While trying to recover and relax, I took a short journey to a local garden shop. I love this place; it always brings me solace. I forgot to take my camera with me, so I took pictures with my little flip phone. I just snapped images that appealed to me. I love that they arrange pots and flowers by color. It was such a good way to unwind without worrying about my tummy troubles. There are rows and rows of flowering plants outside, and rows and rows of garden pots inside.
Creative Vocabulary Strategies to Engage Students
Some words feel wonderful in your mouth: benevolent, pashmina, Constantinople. They roll right off one’s tongue and into one’s imagination.  Words hold meaning and are the building blocks of all human thought. I marvel at students’ curiosity about words and how they often understand and use words far above their age and grade level.  One of my students was so enamored with geology and dinosaurs that his vocabulary in these areas far surpassed mine, allowing him to be my teacher, and I, his attentive student!  I believe that spark of curiosity and imagination in learning vocabulary ignites the power to explore a universe of ideas and concepts.  I've taken this first week of my summer vacation to reflect on the techniques I've used to support students' vocabulary development.
Unlocking Creativity: Building Book Spine Poetry
This month, my dear friend, colleague, and school librarian, Deborah, invited me into her 4th and 5th-grade classes to mix library and poetry skills. I thought Book Spine Poetry would be the best vehicle for this foray into found poetry. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, book spine poetry is a form of found poetry where the poet takes another person's words (in this case, book titles) and forms their own poem. The beauty of book spine poetry is that it is a low-stakes way to introduce poetry writing. The poet becomes an editor of sorts, a connoisseur of the best titles that fit together to form a clever poetic message.
Inspiring Kindness With Picture Books
Sometimes when I talk to children about why they should be kind and treat each other with respect, they tune out. However, they rarely tune out when listening to a captivating story. Stories are the glue that holds their attention. Â
Word Dancer: Literature, the Arts, & Education 