Show, Not Tell

Last week I did a lesson on showing something in your writing rather than telling something happened. I talked to the kids about how showing something is better and more exciting than telling, which is kid of boring.

I had the perfect example...when we had our author visit from Steve Colter, he made mention of how he'd showed that Cheesie Mack and George were friends, rather than telling the readers that they were BFFs.

When I had begun to talk about Showing, Not Telling, I saw a lot of light bulbs click on, as their teachers had taught them this last year. Hopefully, between all those lessons, it will stick in their heads!

But it would be better to show you my example, rather than tell you (hehehe...see what I did there! ;)

I then gave the kids a worksheet I had from Lesson Plan SOS Ultimate Writing Resource. It had a simple sentence on it and I asked the kids to write a paragraph, showing me what happened rather than telling me.

Well, the simple sentence was about a puppy being injured, and their paragraphs turned out really good...gory and kind of scary, but good.

Hopefully this will transfer to their regular writing as well!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn