Understanding the Author's Craft by Writing

My school has started a Data Team that is in charge of analyzing the data that we receive from exams and letting us know what we should try to focus more on in our classes. I am not going to lie, this scared me a bit when they started (am I just going to be teaching to the test?), but for the most part, what they have told us are things I focus on anyways, now I just have to add a note to my Haiku saying, "We are focusing on __________ because of _______________."

One of the areas they feel students need more exposure is analyzing the author's craft. I am pretty excited because I have wanted to justify using the National Novel Writing Month's Young Writer's Program, commonly known as NaNoWriMo YWP, in my classroom and now I can.

NaNoWriMo is so easy it is almost hard to explain. Essentially, it is an idea that anyone who wants to write a novel can sit down and do it in a month. For the adult's program, on November 1, participants start writing with the goal of hitting the 50,000-word mark by 11:59 PM on November 30.

NaNoWriMo also has a Young Writer's Program specifically for students!! For students, they can set their own word limit, making it achievable at any age.

My NaNoWriMo

There's a teacher's kit you can buy / get for free (depending on their supply and your location) that comes with

• An awesome poster for your classroom where students can chart their novelling progress
• 35 stickers that say "Contents Extremely Imaginative" (great for laptops or binders)
• 35 "I Novel" NaNoWriMo buttons 
• One Writer's Emergency Kit (Fun for speaking activities and downtime in class)

But that's not all! There are some different workbooks (for different school levels)  you can download for free or purchase for $10. It goes through some fun ways to introduce your students to plot, setting, characters etc. They also have some lesson plans developed for Kindergartners through High School Seniors.

I won't be using these exactly. I'll be adjusting them so that we can use them to discuss the characters we have read about and analyze how the author has used the skills and methods we are learning about (as well as use them on their own).

I contemplated doing this on Haiku, but I think I will be using the website they have set up where my students can sign up, get motivational speeches, and track their word count. I can also give them announcements etc.

The best part, if your students meet the goal, then they get a voucher to get free copies of their book published and mailed to them. AWESOME motivation.

This will be my first year rocking it, but I'll be sure to post any amazing lessons I come up with while this goes on, and expect a post in December about how it went.

If you've ever done this before or have any pointers, comments below! If you're a newbie like me and you also teach high school, maybe our students could Skype or otherwise collaborate?

Creative Character Quizzes

These aren't the quizzes that your students have to study for! These quizzes make your students use their critical thinking skills, inference skills, grammar skills and technology skills...what more could you want?

If your students like taking Buzzfeed quizzes or any quiz online then they will appreciate this assignment.

My students were reading the Crucible, but it can be easily adapted to any book (or even classmates, teachers, local politicians, etc.). For classes that don't read literature I've also used quizzes to review vocabulary.

As a class we discussed what types of questions we could ask. There were two types we discussed:

1. The literal question.

• These questions asked about things we could literally see. 
• For example: Would you cheat on your significant other?
• Never! I am a good honest person.
• Yes, but I would feel awful later!
• If they were cute and I liked them.
• I am very religious so of course not!
• In this questions we can tell who the answers refer to based on actions or words stated.
• Elizabeth is a good and honest woman who never cheated.
• John cheated, but he felt bad.
• Abigail had an affair with John,so she would be OK with cheating.
• Hale is a reverend, so he is religious.

2. The symbolic question

• These questions require more interpretation.
• For example: What is your favorite color?
• Black
• White
• Red
• Grey
• In these question the answer may depend based on who is writing the quiz
• John Proctor is depressed so he is black.
• Elizabeth is very innocent so she is white
• Abigail is passionate so she is read.
• Hale is grey because he is confused by what is happening in the town and getting more and more depressed.

Once the students understand the differences I gave their requirements.They had to create a 10 question quiz involving four characters. In addition to the quiz they needed to give me a paper that explained their answers.

Once they completed their quizzes they put them online (tryinteract.com is a great site for this) and take at least two other quizzes.

It is a fun project that makes students cite evidence from the text and shows how well they understand the characters.

You can buy the directions and worksheets that go with this for The Crucible on Teachers Pay Teachers at this link

Otherwise be inspired and make your own! Here are two examples from my students

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Zodiac Characterization

Native American Signs

The Western Signs

 What's your sign?

I've seen a lot of really fun lessons be done with the zodiac. The ones I usually see are when people use the discussion of different star signs in a conversation class 

My favorite way is to get students to compare a character to different astrological signs. Now, you can do this any zodiac system you like. The Chinese zodiac signs, the Native American zodiac signs, or the  Western zodiac signs.

I enjoy teaching this lesson with the Chinese zodiac for a couple reasons.

1. I enjoy showing students different cultures. As my students here in Mexico do not have much exposure to Asian culture

The Chinese Zodiac

2. Also, in the case of The Body we know approximately when the characters were born. That means I can lower it down to only two signs, which means there's less reading for the students to do.

What are my students actually doing?

Step 1. They get assigned a character
Step 2. They read about the Ox and the Rat sign.
Step 3. They underline the parts of the descriptions that they feel describe the character.
Step 4. They summarize the descriptions
Step 5. They decide on if he is a rat or an ox.

Normally 1-5 are done on their own. Once they've made their decision I divide the class up by characters.

Step 6. Discuss why they felt the character should be that sign. Compare thoughts with the other students who have the character. See if a consensus on what sign fits best can be reached.
Step 7. Students share their findings with the class. Listen to what other characters are different signs.
Step 8. On their own students find support from the story that matches the descriptions of the sign.
Step 9: Students write a paragraph on why their character is a certain sign.


Voila! This works GREAT at helping my students find evidence to support their arguments. This is something that students tend to struggle with and this assignment is an easy way for them to find specific examples in the text that relate to what they are arguing.

If you're interested in using a worksheet that has already been made then you can go over to TPT for this worksheet. While it was designed for use with The Body it can be used with any characters from any story.  It includes

• A description of the rat and ox personalities
• Space for students to summarize the descriptions
• A graphic organizer to help students sort through their evidence
• Space for them to write a paragraph
• A sample worksheet completed using examples from The Body

Until June 1st I am having it on sale for only $1.00! On June 2nd it will go back to being $1.50.