1. Use three key words to introduce sentence types. Sometimes just shortening longer words to their base can make them easier for students to grasp. I like to use the punctuation marks as part of the key word teaching in phrases like these:

a) Declarative–You DECLARE something. Just stating something.

b) Interrogative—Are you a suspect in an INTERROGATION room getting questioned?

c) Exclamatory—You EXCLAIM something in loud words with an exclamation point!

2. Use the graphic below enlarged or create a poster with the key words and samples (emphasizing the ending marks on the samples) and hang up in your classroom when working on three types of sentences.

3. Write sentences on cards that are laminated and have students practice putting the punctuation on with wipe off markers.

4. Write sentences on a worksheet for students to add punctuation to.

5. Write lists of sentences that should be changed from one type to another type.

6. Have “Sentence-Type Drills” in which students are to find a certain sentence type in their reader or content area book and read it aloud with the emphasis needed for that type of sentence.

7. Don’t ask students to write the three sentence types. Those words are not in their reading or writing vocabulary. Have them draw lines from those words to the sentence types on the other column or write D, I, E….and especially have them put the punctuation marks in the sentences.

8. Bring a Clue game out to use the characters or “weapons” for asking “Interrogative” sentences to each other.

9. Write instances in which a person would EXCLAIM something on cards and have students draw one and state an exclamatory sentence. Write these sentences on the board for them to see them written with the proper punctuation. (These could be yelling over loud music at a concert, calling out to a small child in danger, shouting surprise at a birthday party, etc.)

10. Write a short story containing all three types of sentences. Cut the sentences up into strips. Break students into small groups. Have them put the sentences in order for the story. Then have them read the story aloud, emphasizing the sentence types when they fall.

11. Have sentences on cards all around the room with removable end marks. Each day move the end marks around in the wrong places and have students put them all in the correct places.

12. Have sentences all over the room that need end marks added (cards, sentences on board, posterettes, etc.) and let students add with a white board marker.

13. Have students work in pairs to match the first half of a sentence with the end of it …helping them focus on key words at the beginning that help them know it is likely a question or exclamatory sentence.

14. Memory game with larger cards for unpunctuated sentences and smaller cards for end marks.

15. “Fishing” with a pole and string that has a magnet on the end. They fish a large card (magnetized) and a small card (punctuation mark). When they get a matching pair, they keep it. Winner is the one who has the most at the end of the game.

16. Finish the sentences with the rest of the sentence and its end mark. This can be done in worksheet form, on the board with students orally finishing the sentence and the teacher writing the rest (as well as the punctuation mark needed), or having students do it at the board one at a time.

17. Use picture cards to elicit oral sentences from students. Orally say a sentence about a picture and say what your end mark will be or which kind of sentence it is

18. Use Boogie boards or white boards. All students write a sentence with no end mark and pass them to the left. Students say the sentence and what end mark they added aloud. Erase the boards and do it again, continuing passing.

19. Draw a question word card (who, what, when, where, why, do, are, will, how, etc.) and students orally give a sentence that begins with that card and ends with a question mark. Again, this can all be oral work or can be combined with board work or writing on paper (depending on level).

20. Use magnetic words to have them create the three types of sentences with their end marks.

For more sentence teaching help, check out my four elementary Meaningful Composition books:

(To see the article about my theory of teaching three sentence types, check out my recent article HERE!) 

Love and hope,

Donna

The post 20 Ways to Practice Sentence Types With Elementary Kids appeared first on Character Ink.

Our newest fourth grade composition book is up! Well, it’s not really new…it’s just one of the last two books of the Meaningful Composition series to be revised. And I am so happy with it!

I am happy for all of the regular reasons: (1) It is completely directed—no guess work, no vague ideas of what a student should do, no writing idea book or prompt book; (2) It follows the same layout—each project is one or two weeks long; (3) It teaches the skills needed to complete each project (when an assignment has the student add a quote, it has extensively quote lessons to teach them HOW to add quotes!); (4) It has the outlining spaces, brainstorming boxes, etc., all within it; (5) Has samples galore; and much more.

(See me, two years and 30 pounds ago explaining the details of MC HERE) 🙂

(Or find out why MC works HERE)

True to all of our second, third, and fourth grade books (and all first semester books for 5 through 9), it has the HOW TO’s in the first section. In this case, it has:

(1) How to Write From Sources Using Our Signature Writing Boxes (super effective writing approach that Cathy Duffy loved that is in all of our elementary MC, Write On, and Write-for-a-Month books);

(2) How to Write From Sources Using Our Sentence-by-Sentence Outlining Approach;

(3) How to Complete Our Signature Checklist Challenge. These are step-by-step lessons on our approaches that fall in the first few weeks of each MC first semester books (2 I through 9 I). (Of course, they all teach these lessons with different level-appropriate materials!)

And then…..the absolute darling-ness-factor of this book……

1) Starts out with an Alice in Wonderland writing boxes lesson

2) Has amazing people for them to write about—-Clara Barton, George Washington Carver, and more

3) Contains a Peter Pan story-writing-from-given-source lesson (darlingx5!)

4) Teaches how to write opening and closing paragraphs using sets of animals that display various qualities

5) Uses “zoo information cards” to outline original animal paragraphs

6) Teaches a book report using a meaningful story that they choose about people who were reconciled to each other (okay..little conflict resolution lesson in there!)

7) Has a perfect balance of given sources and original writing for this tender writing age

8) One of the original projects is interviewing pet owners and writing two paragraphs—what fourth grader doesn’t love pets???

I’m crazy about this book, and I know you and your young writer will be also! But just to be sure you know what you are getting yourself into, go ahead and print off three weeks of the sixteen weeks to try with your kiddos! It’s free….because we want you to love what you are buying before you buy it! Get that sample HERE!

Check out all levels of MC at our store—two semesters of each book for second through twelfth grade students. This is the most versatile writing program you will find—no expensive videos or extensive packages; everything contained in each one semester book; Directed Writing Approach throughout. Add a grammar program to 5th through 12th grade books, and you are good to go.

No need to add a grammar program to the elementary books! The 2 I, 2 II, 3 I, 3 II, and 4 I books are grammar-included, so no other English book is needed.

Click the image below to view MC 4-II in the store!

Click HERE to view our other Meaningful Composition books! 

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1. They use my Directed Writing Approach!

In my Directed Writing Approach, every detail of every project is laid out for your student. None of my writing projects are “writing ideas” or “writing prompts.” Every writing assignment contains step-by-step instructions with much hand-holding along the way. The student is “directed” in how to write and what to write at all times—from brainstorming to research to outlining to rough draft and finally to revising.

My Directed Writing Approach takes the best methods I have discovered in order to teach each type of writing—color-coded research for research-based projects, “Topic of Paragraph” commitment for teaching paragraph breaks, The Three P’s of Persuasion for persuasive writing, the “section-paragraph-sentence” method for longer papers, story writing mapping, Paragraph House for young writers, 1-3-1 essay outlines, my Checklist Challenge for revising, and much more. Each Directed Writing Approach “method” is tried and true after fifteen years of my writing one hundred books and over fifty thousand pages!

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

2. They contain a combination of projects—those with “given material” to write from and those that are completely original (in which student finds material on his own to use as his source).

Students are taught a wide variety of outlining methods in all of my books—Key Word Outlines From Given Material, Directed Brainstorming, Persuasive Mapping, The Paragraph House Outline, Split Paper Technique, Sentence-by-Sentence (S-by-S) Outlining from original sources, Q and A Outlines, Five W’s outlines, Scene Outlines for Story Writing, Formal Outlines for research, and much more.

I teach most writing types/projects by giving the student source material to take notes from first—then having the student branch out and write that same type of writing finding his own source. It is this combination of “given material” first followed by student-found material that gives the student confidence to write that type of paper or story. This method keeps the student from becoming too dependent upon given source material while at the same time helping him learn to find source material (or create his own!) after using given passages first. It is a win-win method.

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

3. The skills that are needed for each writing project are taught within that writing project.

To ask a student to write a paper using three sources and two quotations without teaching the student the skills to complete those steps is cruel! When a project is being taught in my books, the student is also taught whatever skills are needed to complete the project.

 
For example, if the student is writing a story about an animal escaping, he will be taught words and vocabulary that describe various sizes and types of animals as well as how to use onomatopoeia to describe animal sounds. If a student is told to write a persuasive paper, he will be taught the elements of persuasive writing first. If he is writing a research report in which quotes are to be cited, he will be instructed first in how to use quotations (in an earlier lesson) then in how to cite them for that particular paper. These many “how to” lessons give students the tools to write whatever they are assigned easily and with confidence.

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

4. Books are tested with over one hundred students each semester!

My books are not written by grammarians behind closed doors or even by experts who seldom work in small groups with students. (While my undergraduate degree in elementary education and my master’s work in reading specialist do help me occasionally, it is homeschooling for thirty-two years and testing my books every year {and writing and rewriting!} that give me my writing credentials.)

 
Character Ink books are written by teachers who write meaningful lessons then take them out and test drive them for two to five years with over a hundred students each semester. (My new 10 II: Four Research Reports has been tested for six years now—and took over a hundred hours to write and perfect the MLA/quotation citation methods lessons alone!)

 
Every year Character Ink has local cottage classes for homeschooled students in which small groups of students (six to ten per class) take either our complete language arts (Character Quality Language Arts) or our composition-only (Meaningful Composition) classes. As we test our books, we make notes in the margins, discuss them with our students (why was this one so hard for you when the last one was easier?), talk among the teachers, then go back and fix the books, tweak the lessons, and even drop lessons that are too confusing or uninteresting to students. You can’t possibly know if a lesson or project is a good one until you have sat across the table from eight junior high boys to watch their expressions (and/or glossed over looks in their eyes!). This is how we know our programs work!

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

5. Student writing samples are provided for all original writing projects and portions of samples are provided for smaller assignments.

Our books have a little extra something that is seldom found in textbooks and certainly never found at the level of ours—student samples! Each of the original projects have a full-length student sample of that project. As a matter of fact, we use the student samples in our books to teach from—starting with Thesis Statements, Thesis Statements “Reloaded,” and other LINK sentences on to paragraph breaks, proper quotation use, scene development in stories, and much more.

 
Students understand the writing project so much better when there are models for them to look at and when they see what the expectations are for the project. Parents love our student samples because it helps them measure their student’s skills in following the instructions for each project (and gives the parent confidence to know if her student is completing the assignment correctly).

 
Our student writing samples are provided in all types of projects—expository essays, biographical reports, research reports, short stories, twice-told tales, persuasive essays, and more. Your student will know from the beginning what each project involves as the book takes him through a sample to see what great project he will be doing! Student samples are invaluable!

Need further evidence? Go to our blog and print off two weeks of free Meaningful Composition samples at each level (or several pages of the downloadable books). Try before you buy! You will be amazed at how quickly your students become accomplished writers—and how pain-free teaching writing really can be! 🙂

*Write On downloadable and print books (Write On, Mowli; Write On, Peter Pan; Write On, Beauty and Beast); Meaningful Composition; Character Quality Language Arts; and other downloadable e-books.

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The post Five Reasons Why Character Ink Writing Books* Work! appeared first on Character Ink.

Classes are underway for the second semester for both Character Ink Cottage Classes and Donna’s Live Online Writing Classes (yay!). I had so much fun with a couple of students in a book that I haven’t taught from for a while that I thought I would give my readers the lesson and video of the class—AND give you a chance to win a copy of the book I am using! Yep–someone will win a free copy of the spiral-bound, print version of Meaningful Composition 9 II: High School Creative Writing simply by watching the teaching video in this post and commenting below that you watched the whole video–and what you learned or liked about it! 🙂 (Homework!)

Here are the deets:

1) Download and print this document here to follow along with the lesson that goes with this video (watch it with your students!).

2) Watch the video of the class.

3) Comment at the end of the blog post what you learned or what you liked about the video by May 31st.

4) Watch the blog for the winner!

If you like learning about descriptive writing, punctuating double and triple adjectives, dividing paragraphs in a one-scene story, using the best words for the job, and more, you will love today’s video! If you need help in teaching outlining, prewriting skills, and more, this lesson will help you. If you’re just curious about my online teaching, watch this video!

P.S. Don’t forget to comment below to be entered to win the drawing on May 31st!

The post Live Teaching Video & REAL Book Give Away! (Free Lesson Download Included!) appeared first on Character Ink.

The post Character Ink 2018-2019 Cottage Classes! Live and Online Options! appeared first on Character Ink.

In my experience, students either love story writing or hate it. They either have ideas floating around in their heads, waiting for the next story writing unit–or they feel that they have no ideas and hope for a stomach bug that week! This is one reason I use the Directed Writing Approach in my books–so that each step of each type of paper is laid out incrementally.

One common problem that students have when story writing is telling “first this happened; then this happened; after this, that happened; later on, this happened” by students. What could be an exciting, action-packed story becomes a narrative/retelling–or worse yet, an essay. Have you ever wondered how to help students from the start with this rambling problem?

Well, I have a lot of ideas for story writing

• Naming/titling each scene or paragraph from the beginning so that the student knows ahead of time what they want to include;
• Having students list the primary goal right off the bat so that the entire time they are writing, they are heading towards that goal;
• Laying out believable obstacles that must be conquered or succumbed to or overcome;
• Teaching being, helping, and linking verbs in a systematic way so that students can avoid using them and use action-driven verbs instead;
• Teaching quotation and dialogue writing incrementally throughout the school year so that the student’s dialogue sings;
• And much more

(These elements are included incrementally in my creative writing books. Check out their full-length sample lessons here: MC 5 II, MC 7 II, MC 9 II as well as in many of the Write On books!)

But the first way that I ensure that students do not have a list of events strung together in their stories actually starts with the lesson itself: The characters, setting, obstacles, goals, and dialogue expectations MUST match the assigned length of the story.

The reason kids string together events one sentence after another in their “story writing” is because they were often not taught to NARROW, NARROW, NARROW according to how much space/time they have.

Click or tap to download lesson!

Follow along with this story writing video (and free downloadable lesson) that contains a TWO PARAGRAPH story to see how this is done. (Yes, two paragraph stories are harder to write than longer ones!)

Let me know what you think! Happy writing—and teaching!

The post Short Story Character With Limited Senses – Video & Free Download! appeared first on Character Ink.

It’s the end of August. Might seem like an odd time for a curriculum sale—but we’re doing it anyway! And it’s a good one!  Use coupon code MC10 to get 10% off your order!!!

Love and hope,

P.S. What writing projects would you like to try individually—as downloadable products? Stories, essays, timed essays, persuasive essays, research reports? We have hundreds of amazing writing projects coming out in the future. We’d love to know which ones you would like to have first. 🙂

The post Meaningful Composition SALE!!! appeared first on Character Ink.

When I post a live video of one of my writing classes on Facebook, I always get those same questions: When will you offer classes for people who don’t live near you? Are you going to be having online classes soon? And I keep saying “soon”! Well, soon is now here. We are officially having our very first LIVE online writing class (remedial writing, of sorts). I will enumerate the details below.

1. Class:

Remedial Writing for 7th through 12th grade students who have not learned how to write four paragraphs or more—or who want to learn my approaches (Sentence-by-Sentence Outlining, Checklist Challenge, Writing Boxes, 3 P’s of Persuasion, Overview Source in Research, and more!) in order to complete other books or classes that we offer. At the end of this class, your student will be able to move into any book in the Meaningful Composition series at or above his grade level. (I have twenty-two total books in this series!)

Note: The class will never be called remedial or remediation outside of this blog post and my ad. From here on (and in class), this class will be called Jump Start Writing.

2. Book:

Meaningful Composition Bonus Book: Jump Start! (Or Jump Start for short!) This book spans fifth through tenth grade writing projects incrementally, covering essays, stories, research reports, and much more. It also covers our Checklist Challenge, Writing Boxes, Creating and Writing From a Sentence-by-Sentence Outline, punctuation and usage, and way more! (See the Table of Contents and Skills Included list below!)

3. Semester Details:

The semester will begin on Thursday, August 31st and run up to and including December 14th for a total of sixteen weeks. We should be able to cover 3/4 of the book in that time frame with students meeting for sixty to ninety minutes a week with me online and completing 45 minutes of homework per day on their non-class week days. The book is sixteen weeks long; we should use at least thirteen of the weeks of the book, based on abilities and ages of students enrolled.

4. Students:

This class is open to anyone in the age range and ability level listed in #1. Students who have not learned the basics of sentences and paragraphs are probably not candidates for this class. The class will be divided into Basic and Extension, so younger students (or those with less writing experience) will have fewer assignments and fewer paragraphs/expectations than older or more experienced students.

5. Student Expectations:

Students will be expected to attend class every Thursday morning 11:00 to 12:00 Eastern time unless arrangements are made ahead of time for the student to watch the recording. (Parents should discuss this with me when enrolling; we want the class to be live so watching recordings will be a last option for necessary misses only.) Students will be expected to complete the homework assignments each week and scan/email their rough draft papers to me for editing and grading as assigned.

6. Parent Expectations:

Parents should watch the Create and Write From a Sentence-by-Sentence Outline and How to Complete the Checklist Challenge videos (you will be given access to the videos and documents upon enrolling in the class) so that they can grade their student’s outlines and Checklist Challenges. The only grading that will be done by the instructor for this class is editing and grading of rough draft papers (before or after the Checklist Challenge is done but before the final copy is created). These videos are under 90 minutes total and will be available as part of the class for the first four weeks of the class. Final grades will not be given, but parents may use the edits and grades from the student’s papers for overall grading purposes, as needed.

7. Materials:

You will be emailed a PDF of the book and will be expected to print this book and three-hole punch it for your student. Each student needs their own book in a three-ring binder. Additionally, students will need a medium set of highlighters (more than four colors), sticky notes, and a thesaurus (or online thesaurus).

8. Cost:

The class fee is $10 per week, $15 PDF fee (for your student use only), and $10 semester charge for our printing and outside editor per student. That is a total of $185. This is payable in three payments: $85 on or before August 24; $50 October 1st; $50 December 1st. You may mail checks or pay via PayPal at characterinklady@gmail.com PayPal address.

9. Class Size:

We will need at least six people in order to run this class with my assistant and outside editor help. We will limit the class to ten people total. If you have a small group of students who want to do the class together, please call me right away to make these arrangements (260-433-4365).

10. Book Samples:

The Jump Start book has been tested over six semesters and will be ready for publication the first of September (at the stores). Therefore, we do not have samples of the book at the store yet. However, you may see the types of projects and layouts of the lessons by checking out the sample lessons in Meaningful Composition 5 I through Meaningful Composition 8 I here.

11. Video Needs:

Your student will need to be able to be on a device or computer (preferably not a phone) on the app called Zoom. I will teach there live and will have screen sharing capabilities should I need to show any part of my book to students. This app is free for attendees.

12. Registration:

To register, email me at characterinklady@gmail.com with your student’s name, grade, address, email that you check frequently, and two phone numbers, if possible. Please also include parents’ names, any info you want me to know, and which number may be used for texting. Call with questions: (260-433-4365).

Love and hope,

Useful links 🙂

Jump Start Table of Contents

Jump Start Skills List

Live Video Lesson: Paragraph Breaks with Train Analogy

Live Video Lesson: Research Report Lesson

Meaningful Composition SALE!

Use coupon code MC10 to get $10.00 off any Meaningful Composition book through the month of August!

The post Live Online Writing Class Starting Soon! appeared first on Character Ink.

Index cards. Hundreds of index cards. Stacks of sources. And hours of research and card making. Lots of confusion. And less understanding of how to synthesize the gathered information. Those are words and phrases that describe my high school composition class days. I finished my paper. I got an A–and then when I set out to write my books thirty years later, I knew I had to develop a better way. There had to be a method by which kids could research from multiple sources, organize that information, outline, and write—with less stress, headache, and bad memories (and hopefully WITH skills that they could carry on to college).

After ten years of curriculum writing, I finally had it—my Overview Source Method and Color-Coded Research approach. And now eight years later still, I am happy to “report” that these methods work! They simplify the process. They help students figure out from the beginning of their research exactly what each paragraph will contain. They force students to design paragraphs up front—avoiding the three-page-long-paragraph problem. And they teach students how to research purposefully. AND…how to merge sources for advanced writing.

Still wondering how this could be? Watch this week’s live video class to see how it can be! 🙂

Download weeks 12 – 13 here!

More helpful books:

Meaningful Composition 8 – I, Bridging the Gap

Meaningful Composition 8 – II, Junior High Research Reports

Meaningful Composition 9 – I, Writing for High School

Meaningful Composition 10 – II, Four Research Reports

Write On, Mowgli, Level V

Write On, Beauty & the Beast! Level V

Love and hope,
Donna

P.S. What writing challenges do you face in your classroom? What levels and types of writing would you like to see live videos of?

The post Research Report Lesson (“Live” Video and Free PDF Lesson!) appeared first on Character Ink.

Teaching writing is not for the faint of heart! It is the most subjective “subject” in school—and, consequently, can be one of the most challenging to teach. Oftentimes, materials designed to teach writing are more writing idea than writing instruction. They leave the student (and the teacher!) wondering exactly what to do to complete the writing prompt. This is one reason that after I write a book (one hundred in all!), test, test, and retest the book with real (or virtual starting this fall!) students to be sure that all of the steps are included and clear. Last week I shared a lesson from one of my books that I did with a mixed live/virtual class about writing from a given source. This week I’d love to give you another peek into my online writing classes for the fall with another cooperative “guinea pig” group!

This week’s lesson had the students branching out from a given source to finding their own source—in a three paragraph beginning-persuasive biographical essay. That is a mouthful…so watch for yourself….with the downloadable lesson provided! Happy writing!

Click here to download weeks 10 and 11 of the Jump Start book!

What kind of writing lesson would you like to see in action? How can I help you teach writing or spelling or grammar or reading in your home or classroom?

Love and hope,

Donna

The post Original Biographical Essay Live Lesson (Video and Download Included!) appeared first on Character Ink.