Day Six - Revising for Language

Today we worked on revising for language - replacing tired or overused words, using descriptive language, and finding a voice. Students read newspaper stories to identify words they liked, and they each created a personal thesaurus in their writer's notebook. (Hopefully they will keep up this habit). They then looked at some photos and wrote down words that came to mind. The idea was to look for powerful words. Here's a few choice ones.






And a few made up words.



As you can see, "glepic" is a combination of glorious and epic. "Rexshausted" (the exact spelling of this was up for debate) is simultaneously feeling both relieved and exhausted. The students coined it for John Isner, winner of the longest Wimbledon match in history (11 hours and 5 minutes).

Once they had a list, they engaged in a "give one - get one" activity (sharing a word they liked, then getting a new word from their partner). Other words that turned up included: jubilant, indomitable, nagging, captivating, intuitive, erupted, mediocre, and jinxed. Good words all.

Finally, they turned to their own stories to revise them for the second time. This involved getting feedback from staff and from peers.