About the Book
A Daily Dose of Writing was created to complement the writing curriculum you are currently utilizing in your classroom. Written by a teacher with over 20 years of teaching experience, this book consists of 180 user-friendly mini-lessons that provide students with strategies and skills to be successful writers, and perform well on state mandated writing tests.
These lessons include, but are not limited to the following:
- strong verbs
- descriptive sentences
- writing dialogue
- grammar: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, verbs, and more
- similes
- metaphors
- confusing words (examples: its, it's; their, there, they're; too, to, two)
- idioms
- hyperboles
- interjections
- alliterations
- personification
Perfect for ESL students, homeschooling and special education students as well as general classroom use. Specifically written for grades 4-8, these lessons can be modified or adapted for any grade level.
Click on the Preveiw Pages link to see the Table of Contents for the complete list of skills taught.
Why?
Why this book was written.
When asked, teachers told us loud and clear that they needed mini-lessons to teach students about figurative language, strategies to teach descriptive writing, and how to address confusing words in the English language. They were frustrated that their students were losing precious points on state writing tests by using many confusing words incorrectly and making simple grammatical errors.
Teachers also stated that they were tired of wondering what skills they had not taught, and then spending countless hours preparing lessons. Our goal in writing this book was to give teachers what they needed at their fingertips, and get them back to what they love doing: teaching!
A Daily Dose of Writing is a teacher friendly text that can be utilized for a ten minute mini-lesson or for the entire class period.
About the Author
Sharlayne Overton
Sharlayne Overton graduated from Central Washington University located at Ellensburg, Washington in 1979 with a Degree in Language Arts. She received her Master's Degree from Heritage College in 1991. Sharlayne began her teaching career in 1980. She has taught second grade through sixth grade, special reading and remedial math. She currently teaches fourth grade in Washington State.
Sharlayne was chosen to work with nine other teachers alongside Nikki Elliot Shuman to help create the writing prompts for the fourth grade portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. In the year 2005, she was one of 10 teachers chosen to help with range finding for the narrative scoring guidelines for the fourth grade WASL.
Having given the WASL for many years, Sharlayne is very familiar with the writing standards that students must achieve, and knows that these standards are nationwide. Her goal was to create lessons that would enhance what teachers are currently using as best practices for teaching writing in their classrooms.