Joining Informal Courses

Joining Informal Courses Makes Students Smart

          Joining informal courses has become a trend among the students in learning. They feel the needs to get more time to study because they think that the study time at school is not enough to acquire the lesson. Before we go further, let us examine what is the definition of Informal learning according to Jay Cross, one of the biggest advocates of informal learning, ”Informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way most of us learn to do our jobs. Informal learning is like riding a bicycle: the rider chooses the destination and the route. The cyclist can take a detour at a moment’s notice to admire the scenery or help a fellow rider.” Based on the definition above, we believe that joining informal courses is one of the ways that can help the students to be brighter and smarter than the ones who only studying in formal institutions.
          Firstly, we are going to discuss how informal courses can offer the students to have more study time. The frequency of studying plays a really significant role to students achievement. One of ways to increase the study frequency is by joining informal courses. As we all know, the informal courses take place out of the school time. It means that instead of studying at school, the students will be able to have a special time to study their lesson more.
          Secondly, let us see the relationship between having more time to study and acquiring better understanding. There is nothing instant to get something what we want, not excluding to be smart. The more we study, the more we understand and the more we acquire the subject that we learnt. In this process, time is the significant factor that determines how far we master the lesson. The additional time that we get from joining informal courses allows students to acquire better understanding.
          Thirdly, the ultimate effect of acquiring better understanding is the smartness of the students. Smartness is not easy to get. It needs a quite long process of acquiring and collecting information. If students join informal courses that make them have more time to study, means that they are able to acquire thorough information about the lesson. They can get better understanding than other students who do not join informal courses. Then, if they know better about the lesson, it will make them smarter and brighter compare to other students who only study at ordinary school time.
          In short, informal courses give a chance to the students to have more time in studying and acquiring the lesson better. As a result, the dream of the parents to have smart children will be accomplished. Therefore, it would be better if parents send their children to join informal courses for the sake of children’s future.

Writing for Enjoyment through Web-Blog

Enjoyable Learning: Writing for Enjoyment through Web-Blog

In the globalization era, English and technology have become the important elements for human being. Technology and English should go hand in hand. People are asked to be able to utilize technology to support their life. Besides, high school students should be familiar to and know how to operate the Internet because they can get many helps from it, such as information about the hottest news in the world, information about their idol, and so on. Moreover, as we know that nowadays, English has become the international language that is used as a means of international communication by every country. That is why people are also demanded to master and use English to be able to survive in the modern community. As language learners, we have to acquire all the important skills in learning English, which are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Most students think that the most difficult skill to be acquired is writing. Perhaps, it is because they have to produce something from their learning. They think that to organize and develop the ideas are really difficult to be done. They sometimes feel depressed when they have to make an essay. For instance, me myself, I think writing is actually hard, especially in finding the idea what I have to write. Because when I cannot find the idea or the topic that I am going to write, I cannot even start to make an essay. Another example is my friends in writing class, most of them also feel distressed when they are asked to make an essay by our lecturer. To solve these problems, teachers can try to apply an interesting and enjoyable way to develop students writing skill through web-blog in the Internet.

            Before we go to further explanation, let us see the definition of writing and web-blog according to Longman Dictionary. Writing means the activity of creating or producing written texts such as stories, books, and so forth. Furthermore, the meaning of web-blog is that a web page containing information or opinion from a particular person or about a particular subject, to which new information is added regularly. In other words, we can say that a web-blog is like an electronic diary. Now, let me explain the process of making a web-blog and writing in it, which might be interesting for students to be conducted. There are three steps that have to be executed to make a web-blog and writings in it, which are making an e-mail account, making a blog account, and making a posting.

            First thing first, before we make a blog, we need to make an e-mail account if we have not had it yet. We need to go online through a computer or laptop, make sure that we are connected to the Internet service. Open our web-browser such as Mozila Firefox, Opera, or other browsers that we have. Then, insert the address, in this case we can either open yahoo.com or gmail.com, by typing the name in the address tab and clicking enter. Wait for a moment to get the page loaded and click the sign up button. After that, start to insert all information that are needed in each tab, such as our name, gender, date of birth, address, name of e-mail address that we want, e-mail password, and finally insert the code that is given by the operator. Then, click Make an Account button and our e-mail account has been completed.

            The second thing that we have to do is making the blog account. In the browser, we need to insert the address again. For this time, we can try either blogger.com or wordpress.com. Both of them are free charge, so that you do not have to be confused about payment. After inserting the address, do not forget to click enter button in our keyboard and wait for seconds. If we open the blogger page, click Get Started button and start typing information needed such as our e-mail address, e-mail password, password for our blog account, and insert the code that is given by the operator. Then, do not forget to click I agree tab and Continue button to go to the further process. The next process is making the identity of the blog. We can insert any information that we want for our blog such as our blog’s name, about us, even our blog’s type, and then click the Continue button to design our blog appearance. We can choose any templates that are provided by the operator and apply it to our blog appearance. By this process, our blog is ready to use.

            The third step is making a posting in the web-blog. To make a writing in the web-blog, we have to log in first, insert our e-mail address and our blog password, and then press the enter button on the keyboard. Wait for a moment to load the page. After the page is fully loaded, click New Entry button on the page and start writing. Type the title of our writing in the title tab, and type our writing content in the body tab. After finishing writing, do not forget to give our posting a label to make it categorized and easier to identify, and then click Publish Now button. Our writing is finally published in our new web-blog. If we want to see how the face of our blogs with our new posting, we can click view my blog button.

            From those processes, we know that actually making a blog is not difficult. Teachers can supervise the students’ blog every week. Students can write anything they want and in every two weeks, teachers give a particular topic to the students to be written by them. Besides, writing through web-blog is a good way to improve pupils’ writing skill, for it is interesting, enjoyable, and effective.

            Writing a blog is interesting because students are able to design their own blog page and they have a chance to show who they really are. It has more aesthetic aspects since they can add several pictures, change the font color and type, add some videos that are related to the theme, and any other things. Students will be interested in it if it is compared to writing in Microsoft Word or on plain paper. If they are interested, they will have more eagerness to open their web-blog routinely and add some postings in it. Besides, they are not only able to open their own web-blog but also others’ web-blog. By this, they can compare their blogs with their friends’ work. They will feel challenged to make their blogs interesting by modifying it or adding some interesting postings. Thus, they will make writing regularly and by regular exercises, their writing skill will be improved.

            Beside it is interesting, writing a blog is also enjoyable. Normally, if people consider something as interesting thing, they will enjoy doing it. For example, if we find an interesting movie, we will watch it until it ends and it is including in writing through blog. In the previous passage I have been explaining that students will write regularly because they find it is interesting and they might enjoy it. Since regular exercise is important for language learners, a blog is one of the ways to encourage them to write routinely. Moreover, people will do thing better when they feel enjoy since emotion can affect the work of people’s brain. If they feel bored when they write on plain paper, their ideas will be gone and they will be stuck. However, if they feel joyful and relaxed, their ideas can flow smoothly and they will be able to produce their work and their ability in writing will be increased gradually. In addition, teachers will give a particular topic only for every two weeks when they will review or give the correction to students’ writing. In other time, students are free to write interesting topics. It will make them enjoy and do not feel depressed because they can write everything that interests them.

            The following is that writing through a blog is an effective way to improve students’ skill. When students write something in their blogs, it will be published throughout the world. People are free to access it. It means that, they will have a chance to get feedback not only from their teachers but also from their friends and other people in the world. From that feedback, they can try to make their writing better than before and they are encouraged to use the good grammar and good organization. It will improve their writing skill.

            In brief, we can summarize that writing through web-blog is actually easy to be done due to the process of making a blog page. Moreover, it is also interesting, enjoyable, and effective way that can be implemented to improve high school students’ ability in writing. Therefore, teachers can try to start implementing it in their teaching method to make the students enjoy writing and able to follow the improvement of modern technology such as the Internet.

Strategy to Teach English Successfully

Many institutions and teachers have a reputation for real success in teaching English. Others have a poor reputation. For example, they say that they have learnt a lot of English at school. Others say that they have studied for three, four years or more, but learnt almost nothing.The main test in for real success in teaching and learning should be whether or not the learners are able to communicate at all in English.Can they understand simple instruction, letters, articles? Can they respond an interview? Can they use certain functional expressions in aconversation? Can they comprehend simple paragraphs? Can they ask for directions in the street? Can they express their opinion in a discussion? Can they write letters or reports? And, can they pass recognized Examinations in English, like KET, PET, IELTS, TOEIC, orTOEFL?

We know success is not just being able to repeat memorizes sentences or complete grammar exercises, - but more than that, the learners should have ability to use English effectively in real communication situations. Success is not the same as getting 8, 9 or 10 in course tests - though it may indicate some progress

Successful teachers and institutions where they teach may be different in many ways. Their teaching skill is affected by their experiences, trainings, size of class, hours of teaching in a week, methodology and the materials they usually use. However, successful teachers tend to have certain things in common. They usually:

. Have practical command in English, not just a knowledge of grammar rules.

. Use English most of the time in every class, including beginners' classes.

. Emphasize more on learners' practice, instead of teacher explanations.

. Use time for real-communicative activities, not just practice of language forms.

. Focus their teaching on their learners' needs, not just 'finishing' the syllabus or course book.

A teacher's development of a command of English should be along-life hobby as well as a professional obligation. Of course, aknowledge of the rules and terminology of grammar and vocabulary is also useful. But language teaching is much more than just the transferof knowledge.  By using English in or out of classroom, their learners constantly experience the real communicative use of English. It motivates the learners and improves their exposure to the languagethrough listening comprehension and gives them opportunity to speakEnglish.
Finally, put the learners at the centre of teaching. Your success as a teacher is based entirely on their success as learners.

Hopefully this short ideas will benefit those interested in English teaching.

WAYS TO TEACH WRITING

WAYS TO TEACH WRITING

Writing an English composition and writing an Indonesian one are quite different. It takes students quite a long time for them to be familiar with the format and elements in writing a paragraph in English. In fact, every part of textbooks can become the source of writing. Thus, if teachers incorporate a wide variety of writing activities into their teaching, students can have the motivation to write more and meanwhile, they will not get bored. In this article, I provide teachers with quite a few writing activities I take advantage of in my English class. Many of these activities integrate the Internet into writing practice, which can further arouse students’ interest in English writing.

Writing is a long process of learning. As soon as students start to learn English, they should start to write in English. It is my belief that variety is the spice of life. No matter how interesting one activity is when students first do it, they will get bored if they have tried it for more than three times. Thus, as high school English teachers, it is our responsibility to integrate all kinds of writing activities into the English teaching.

How to Motivate Students to Write More

   The first thing we should do is to encourage students to write more. The more they write, the more improvement they will make. I suggest students begin with sentence level exercises. The following are the most preliminary activities:

1. Expanding words and phrases into sentences
2. Expanding sentences by adding modifiers
3. Making sentences by using specific patterns
4. Translating sentences

These activities can be incorporated in everyday teaching. As for paragraph level, we may make use of the activities, such as:

1. Answering one “question for discussion” based on the reading in their textbook (Students are asked to answer in 30 to 50 words.)
2. Keeping a journal (Ten students share the same notebook. In this way, each student writes every other week and he/she can read other students’ journals. The teacher only needs to read 5 to 6 students’ journals a day and gives students responses instead of scores.)
3. Writing e-mails (Students are asked to write e-mails to teachers, or classmates. They have to send copies of these e-mails to the English teacher.)
4. Participating in English Discussion Board (Not every discussion board is safe. Teachers should guide students to participating in safe discussion board)
5. Keeping an online diary (Teachers guide students to make comments on teachers’ blog. Later on students can start their own blogs as well.)

The above activities are not restricted to freshmen or sophomores. As I mentioned before, students depend on change for their motivation of learning. With the varieties of these activities, students are not aware that they are learning how to write.

Materials for Students to Write About

   Choosing what to write about is always giving English teachers and students a headache. In fact, writing activities can be generated from other kinds of language learning materials. Generally speaking, materials may be from (A) Reading, (B) Pictures, (C) Videos, (D) the Internet, etc.

1. Writing & Reading

On the basis of the readings in textbooks, we can introduce several writing activities to students. If the reading passage is a story, teachers can guide students to:

a.       predict

b.      answer 5W questions and then combine them into a summary;

c.       write about the beginning, middle and end of the story and then combine them into a summary;

d.      describe the story’s setting, characters and event;

e.       write about the problem & solution/cause & effect of the story;

f.       write a summary or response of the story.

g.      write a following up story

If the reading is an expository, teachers can utilize ready-made graphic organizers (For example, http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/) or use software such as Inspiration or KidPix to draw the structure of the reading. After students are familiar with the structure, they can write a composition of the same structure but on a different topic. The example is below:

      Water: Where Has It All Gone?

Factors        Problem     Solution

 

 After students fill out the form based on the reading, they are asked to pick a problem, imitate the structure of the reading and write a composition of their own. 

2. Writing & Pictures

Students are asked to describe a picture or a comic strip instead of writing a formal composition in their English Proficiency Exam. Teachers can find single pictures from books, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. (For example, http://www.intoon.com/index.shtml?) Comic strips can also be found in newspapers and the Internet. (For example, http://www.comics.com/comics/peanuts/).  It will be easier for students if they do group discussion first. Teachers should remind students to begin their stories with a topic sentence.

3. Writing & Videos

If videos tell us stories, we can apply the activities similar to those based on readings in textbooks. Besides, chain story is a good choice. After watching a video and after discussion, students take turns telling the story. They have to mention every detail because each student should have something to say. Later on, students have to write down all their sentences. In this way, every one of them helps make up the story. If students are asked to watch informative videos, they can do activities like those related to expository articles.

4. Writing & the Internet

There are numerous websites and tools on the Internet which are very helpful to both teachers and students. Some of the following are mentioned in “Ways to Motivate Students to Write More,” but I am going to give a better description of how to take advantage of the Internet.

a.       E-mail

Every teacher has got to have an e-mail account, which is not only for receiving students’ e-mails and homework. The teacher can give students the password so that when students work in groups, they can send whatever they find to the account and then the other group members can open the files, read and even edit them. 

b.      Discussion Board

The discussion board in school magazine is participated in by senior high schools students and teachers and they are discussing about the movies, the reading materials and all activities happen at the school.

c.  Blog

Blog is short for web log. Actually it is an online journal. If English teachers want to apply Blog to their writing class, they have to register in a blog website first and then have the students register, too. Having a username and password, teachers can do the following activities:

(a)    Having students leave comments on the articles in their teacher’s blog.

(b)   Having students post journals in their own blogs and leave comments in other students’ blogs.

(c)    Having students post journals and make comments in their class blog.

These activities are applicable both because there are many free blogs available on the Internet (such as http://www.blogger.com) and because students are more willing to write on the Internet.

Formal Writing

   If the students have tried the website Paragraphpunch, they’ll know the standard writing procedure is Prewriting à Planning à Drafting à Revising à Editing. If they have not, it is essential for teachers to introduce the procedure to students. Besides, teachers must emphasize that an effective paragraph should contain a topic sentence, organized details, transitional words and a concluding sentence. The website http://palc.sd40.bc.ca/palc/Quiz/Writing/paragraph1.htm has eight multiple choices, which can reinforce the process of writing paragraphs. As for kinds of paragraphs, generally speaking, we have “giving examples”, “giving reasons”, “process”, “definition”, “cause & effect, comparison & contrast, narrative, descriptive, argument, summary and response, etc. Before students write any of the paragraphs, teachers had better give them some samples, instruct them to analyze the format of the paragraphs and then have them copy the format, writing their own paragraphs.

   After students are capable of writing a paragraph with appropriate elements and structure, teachers can ask them to expand their paragraphs into essays. Once students have the ability to write essays, they can try Criterion, an online writing evaluation. (http://criterion.ets.org/cwe/student/). Criterion is not free and it is about TOFEL level, so it may be difficult for most senior high school students.

Conclusion

      Writing is a long term course. It takes three whole years for students to be familiar with the format of writing in English. As teachers, we should figure out ways in which students can enjoy writing. Most importantly, teachers have to motivate their students to write and encourage them to write more. As long as students are willing to write, their writing ability will surely improve.

Implementing the Jigsaw Method

Implementing the Jigsaw Method in Teaching Writing of Descriptive Texts at SMAN 1 Srengat

English has the main courses which students have to be capable with such as reading, listening, writing and speaking. Writing is one of the important courses in the English lesson especially for senior high school students. According to teacher’s guideline, writing courses in senior high school are classified into writing descriptive text, narrative text, report text, recount text, analytical exposition text, etc. The teachers are supposed to have brilliant methods to help the students easily organize the ideas in order to pass the writing courses. One of the methods that can be accomplished in writing course especially in teaching descriptive texts is called jigsaw. Jigsaw is defined as a kind of cooperative learning technique which has a grouping strategy where the members of the class are organized into “home” group. The students are then reorganized into “expert” groups containing one or two member(s) from each “home” group. In this way the students discuss the material (teacher’s hand made material descriptive text about Agnes Monica). By using the jigsaw method, the students can efficiently learn how to write descriptive texts in the form of peer-teaching. The purpose of this essay is to underscore the implementation of the jigsaw method; grouping, sharing and writing.

To start this method, we deal with the grouping step. In this step the students will have dependent activities. The class activities are mostly conducted by the teacher which causes the students being passive in the class. However, in this method, students are divided into small groups to share the material taught without being interrupted by the teacher. The teacher only appears to divide them into “home” group and “expert” group. “Home” group means the original group where the students are given the various topics toward the material that is explained. For example, the teacher divides the class into 8 groups consisting of 5 - 6 students with one title of descriptive text topic, Agnes Monica. In this “home” group, teacher gives each member a different clue. The teacher gives the pictures that symbolize Identification, Description 1, and Description 2 which are the generic structure of the descriptive text (actually the structure is only consisted of identification and description but since it is necessary to have 3 structure so the teacher initiated to divide the descriptive text into 3 structures). Then, the teacher reorganizes each of the group members to gather discussing the pictures related to the topic given in the “expert” group. When the teacher gives 3 topics as our example, there are also 3 “expert” groups. This activity obviously aims to gain the students participation as well. This activity apparently enables the students to increase their self-esteem in writing descriptive texts. As a proof, the writer did this method and it shows that students in SMA Negeri 1 Srengat can easily comprehend the material while they are divided into groups because they learn without being forced by the teacher.

The next step of this teaching method is the sharing step. As soon as they all have got their duties, they move to the “expert” group. The students will enjoy their turn to tell their pictures and shares to other friends in the “expert” group. They feel free to express their ideas about the pictures with their friends in the “expert” group. Here, they are given a chance to talk about the pictures and share their opinion in order to be able to report what they have been discussed to the “home” group. For instance, student 1 is assigned to the Identification where the picture has Agnes Monica photo, her date of birth, original name, address and family. Student 2 deals with the description 1 which the picture given was a photo of Agnes Monica with details description on his appearance, attitude and several questions that aim to lead the students into the paragraph of description of Agnes Monica  physical appearance. Student 3 gets the description 2 which is the description of Agnes Monica career. Many researchers prove that this kind of sharing in using jigsaw method can improve the ability of students in writing genre based text, because by sharing the students can get the ideas of the story easily. The writer believes that sharing in jigsaw can help students to make their ideas of writing descriptive text run smoothly.

The last step is writing. In this step, the students are motivated to write and work together to describe pictures that have been discussed in the “expert” group. After they finished discussing in the “expert” group, they need to come back to the “home” group. In the “home” group they share about what they have got from the “expert” group and combine the each story into a complete story. The each part of the generic structure becomes one unit of descriptive text in the “home” group. In the writing step they are appointed to write down the result of the discussion in the “expert” group. The three students combine the identification, description 1 about physical appearance and the description 2 about career that they got to be written as a descriptive text. At last the students arrange the three different generic structures into one whole text and present it in front of the class.

In a brief, we can simply say this essay that the jigsaw method can be applied in teaching writing of descriptive texts that is sequenced into three steps, which are grouping, sharing and writing. These three steps are actually part of one great method provided by the teacher to decrease the cases beyond students in senior high school that mostly have difficulties in writing courses.

Topics for Writing

Topics for Writing 

Hypothetical

What would you do if you were late for an important appointment?
What would you do if someone accused you of a crime you didn't commit?
What would you do if you got lost in an unfamiliar city?
What would you do if you left something in a locked building?
What would you do if your best friend stole something from you?
What would you do if you didn't have enough money to pay your bills?
What would you do if your children were caught shoplifting?
What would you do if your car got a flat tire on the freeway?
If you could change one thing about your past, what would it be?
If you could change one major historical event, what would it be?

Description

Describe a famous park or recreation area in your home country.
Describe an interesting neighbor you have had.
Describe something you could never give away.
Describe a place you will never forget.
Describe a sporting event you attended recently.
Describe a memorable birthday celebration.
Describe a place you go for recreation or exercise.
Describe your childhood home.
Describe someone you respect deeply.
Describe the nightlife in a city you are familiar with.

Narration

Tell about a recent interview.
Tell about a time when you lost something.
Tell about one of your fondest childhood memories.
Tell about a time when you lied to your parents, boss, or teacher.
Tell about a time when you were treated unfairly.
Briefly tell about a movie you saw recently.
Tell about something you made ?from scratch.?
Tell about a "close call" you had recently.
Tell about something you wish had never happened.
Tell about a time when you inadvertently caused trouble for someone else.

Opinion

What is your opinion about cellular phones?
What is your opinion about women in the military?
What is your opinion about a current politician?
What is your opinion about violence on television?
What is your opinion about fortune telling?
What is your opinion about the tabloids?
What is your opinion about legalizing marijuana?
What is your opinion about the welfare system?
What is your opinion about cloning?
What is your opinion about recycling?

Instructions

Tell how to find something on the Internet.
Tell how to feed family members who drop by unexpectedly.
Tell how to dump a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Tell how to get from your house to the supermarket.
Tell what to do in an earthquake.
Tell how to get someone to fall in love with you.
Tell how to make a paper airplane.
Tell how to get a good table at a restaurant.
Tell how to get a discount on an expensive item.
Tell how to discipline an unruly child.

Ideas For Teaching Writing

Ideas For Teaching Writing

Tips For Teaching Handwriting

1. Work on hand-eye coordination with craft projects.
2. Work on skills one at a time. Letter Height, Spacing, Slants, and Line Alignment.
3. Once all skills are mastered begin to group skills together.
4. Use high-frequency words and words that have meaning to students.
5. Provide parents with a handwriting guide. Handwriting Tips for Lefties:
6. Position the paper to the extreme left of the child's mid-line.
7. Angle the paper so that it is parallel with the child's forearm
8. Put masking tape on their desks to help them align the paper.

Creating Photo Essays

Photo essays are a special type of writing; they tell stories with a group of photographs that are connected to a theme. One activity using photo essays as a type of writing includes having students pick a topic (in any content area) that they would like to "write" about. Tell them that they have to collect photographs or pictures that represent the topic. Once they have their collections and you gave them a chance to discuss the relevance of the photos to the topic, ask them to arrange the photos in such a way (sequentially, etc.) that tell a story or relay the message related to the topic they chose. Students love to express their thoughts about topics using this medium. If you have technology to complete this activity, you can have students cut and paste their story using photos or images that they find on the Internet. This is a great activity for group work.

How to Make a Big Book

Pick a book with illustration, short story, rhyme, song, or poem to enlarge. Have materials like large pieces of paper or posterboard, plenty of crayons, markers, paints, or other art materials. Divide the text of the writing leaving half of the page for the illustrations (can be copied or done freehand by the children). Include an author page, illustrations, and copyright information (date, year, etc.). Have the children design a cover; put the pages in sequence; bind the book together with metal or plastic rings, yarn, or other binding materials.

Creating A Story In Sequential Order

The teacher gives the students a paragraph to get the story started and pupils add their sentences alternately. It's great fun building a short story with students. After story building, students can create illustrations based on the short story.

Spelling Twist

"Looking for a fun, new twist for studying spelling words. This one worked for me. Each child will say each spelling word, spell it then say it again while doing the twist. This process is repeated 3 times for each word. Some of the boys preferred to do Karate moves instead of the Twist. This sets a rhythm to the words as well as makes for a fun and exercising way to study the words. The class had so much fun it was no suprise that spelling test grades increased. We had a class vote on this being included in our weekly spelling curriculum, 100% voted in favor."

A Class Newspaper

Nearly every teacher finds it hard to encourage children to write creatively. The idea of creating a class newspaper with their own creative writings helped children not only to write creatively but to engage fully in the writing process (drafting, editing etc.) and to learn more about newspapers.
The children did create themselves a class newspaper.

Creating A Story In Sequential Order

The teacher gives the students a paragraph to get the story started and pupils add their sentences alternately. It's great fun building a short story with students. After story building, students can create illustrations based on the short story.

Create An Author's Corner

Set up a table that becomes the Authors' Corner in your room. This table should be filled with different colored paper with lines, without lines. Construction paper should be available, colored pencils or washable markers. There could be pieces of material, string, feathers, anything that will provoke creativity in the students. This is the place where the students become authors and write books. For the younger student, a form paper can be displayed with Title, Author, Illustrator. They can fill in the blanks. A dedication page can be prepared. Again, the students can fill in the blanks. There can be an idea box to motivate students. Maybe some starter sentences. Anything that encourages children to write. The book can be 2 pages or 5 pages. The length is not important. A love for writing is the reason for this corner. Ask the students what else should be on the table. They have great ideas!