Mini-Lessons in Writing

In my Teaching Writing class, groups presented mini-lessons they would teach in writing, some using picture books (and some not).  Hopefully, no one minds that I'm incorporating these ideas in my blog.  No one minds?  Ok, awesome!

Our group decided to use a picture book by Garrison Keillor, The Old Man Who Loved Cheese to teach similes.  It doesn't have a great amount of similes but it has some to get the point across.  While the teacher reads the book, the students can clap whenever they hear a simile.  This allows them to be aware when they're reading to see the similes in books.
Another book I found on my own that has a lot of similes is a picture book by Anthony Browne called My Dad.  This book has a lot of similes in it!  After reading, you can ask your students to write a short piece using a simile or two.

Another activity I like is writing a biography about a classmate or even write a autobiography.  This assignment is very meaningful to students which I think is very important.  In these, you can teach a lot of different mini-lessons but one could be chronological order because that is extremely important in a biography and autobiography.

Have you ever heard the story of The Three Little Pigs or Cinderella?  Of course!  So now, when kids have heard a few versions, they can come up with their own.  Pick any story that has been told and retold, read those few versions to your kids, and once they get the main idea, they can go wild with their imaginations and write their own piece. For the The Three Little Pigs, I would recommend a good and entertaining retelling by Jon Scieszka called The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.  For fairy tales such as Cinderella and such, a good way to incorporate diversity would be to include versions from other countries.  They're similar yet they're different which makes it interesting to read them.