by Sharon Watson | Nov 9, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Literature, Sharon's Blog, tutorial, Writing Prompts
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS
Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verses, the deliciously creepy The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and My. Hyde based on a real person, and much more. You can learn more about him here.
Pirate in disguise
In Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins is warned to be on the lookout for and avoid “the seafaring man with one leg.” Yet when he meets a sailor with one leg named Long John Silver, Hawkins is not troubled. Why?
First, he’s had a letter from his friend the squire claiming that Long John Silver is a war veteran who lost his leg “in his country’s service.” Next, when he meets Silver for himself, Silver seems “clean and pleasant-tempered.” Here is the paragraph where Jim Hawkins meets the truly nasty Long John Silver who, at the moment, doesn’t seem so nasty: (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Oct 28, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Middle School Prompts, Middle School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts
SHARON’S BLOG
You may be very good at expressing your opinions, especially when you want to change someone’s mind.
What you may not know is that if you truly want to change someone’s mind, you have to stop thinking about your opinion and start thinking about your audience.
This tutorial, with a free infographic to download, will show you very clearly the difference between writing an opinion and writing to persuade an audience.
Opinion versus Persuasion
Writing or expressing an opinion is all about what you like; convincing another person to do something is all about what they need to hear to be persuaded.
Here’s an infographic that shows the difference between writing an opinion and writing to persuade. After the infographic, I’ve included a short writing exercise you can do quickly. My writing class just did it, and they had fun sharing their ideas about alligators, snow leopards, snakes, and so forth. (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Oct 19, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS
Hyperbole is a lot of fun to read and to write.
But what is it?
Hyperbole (hi PER bo lee) is exaggeration, as in “He was as hefty as a whale” or “Her whining voice so electrified the air that it knocked migrating geese off their course.” To read examples of this figure of speech, click here.
Just so you know, this figure of speech is also called a writer’s device and a literary device. And, just so you also know, “writer’s device” and “literary device” mean the same thing. The first is from the writer’s perspective; the latter is from the perspective of a student studying literature.
Here’s an example of hyperbole from Lee Child’s Personal in which he describes one of the bad guys: (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Oct 12, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Middle School Prompts, Middle School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, tutorial, Writing Prompts
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS
How do you write a story about Alaska before people arrived? You make animals the main characters, which is exactly what James A. Michener does in Alaska.
Michener creates Matriarch, a mammoth that is old enough to be the grandmother of many other mammoths. Through her eyes, we see the landscape and experience the early troubles of the area now known as Alaska.
An Alaskan Matriarch
Here’s a passage from Alaska in which Matriarch first encounters . . . well, I think you’ll figure out what’s going on here: (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Oct 7, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Middle School Prompts, Middle School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, tutorial, Writing Prompts
SHARON’S BLOG
Let’s celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by highlighting a short story by Colombian-born Gabriel García Márquez.
Many stories can be put into one of two categories when talking about how the ball gets rolling: (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Oct 5, 2014 | Middle School Prompts, Middle School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts
MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS
Note: This is part one of the Intro to Writing series. Find links to the other tutorials here.
What do you do when your teacher gives you a subject to write about, but that subject is too broad?
For instance, what if your teacher says, “Write about natural disasters”? Right off the bat, you know you are in trouble. That subject is too large; there are too many possibilities. It would take a few books to cover everything, and your essay is due in two days. (more…)
