Writing on Demand: Week Six
Review Week: Choose one of your three writing pieces from the past month that you can improve. Every day we will focus on one or more writing skill and applying it to this piece to improve it and make it better. Each day there are several suggestions that you can take and apply to your writing piece.
Monday: Organization
Tuesday: Ideas and Voice
Wednesday: Sentence Variety
Thursday: Word Choice
Friday: Presentation
Monday: Organization
- Every new idea should have its own paragraph. If it's a small paragraph, we can add more support tomorrow.
- Is there a clear introduction, body, and conclusion? If not, mark the place it needs to be. You can add it in tomorrow.
- Read only the first sentence of each paragraph. Did it make sense compared to the larger topic? Does it make sense compared to the other ideas in that paragraph? If not, change it, add it, or move it as needed.
Tuesday: Ideas and Voice
- Don't leave main ideas without support--that's like having a table without legs! If you have any main ideas from yesterday that need more support, now is the time to add it.
- Are you missing a clear introduction, body, or conclusion? Now is the time to add it.
- Not missing any ideas? Then work on adding voice. In an informational piece that means adding cool details, vivid language, and description. In a persuasive piece or narrative that means using stories and opinions to bring your point to view to life. In creative writing that means setting a tone with vivid sensory details.
Wednesday: Sentence Variety
- In order to make sure there is sentence variety, look at the first word or phrase of every sentence. Change any that are the same!
- Count how many words are in each sentence. I challenge you to have several short sentences, several long sentences, and one really long (but still grammatically correct!) sentence that uses a comma or semicolon.
Thursday: Word Choice
- Let's get rid of boring words! Find these words in your writing and swap them for more interesting synonyms: good, bad, pretty, a lot, really, very, things, stuff
- How many descriptive words did you use in your writing? I challenge you to find five more places where you can add descriptive word(s) or phrases
Friday: Presentation
- Is the piece in Century Gothic size 11 font?
- Is your name, class hour, and turn-in date in the upper left hand?
- Is the piece left justified (all the text starts on the left side of the page)?