Adding Detail and Description

I had initially considered presenting my demonstration lesson about an activity I successfully used from George Hillocks, Jr.'s Narrative Writing: Learning a New Model for Teaching. My students' writing improved after we did his sea shell activity. They started to and continued to add more detail and description to their writing, and there wasn't anything else at that point that I had done differently from previous years. This year I'll try it again.

I found seashells at our local WalMart to use in this activity. This is not meant to be a commercial endorsement, but I was thrilled to find them inexpensively by the bag in the home decor department, and to find that I wouldn't have to spend years collecting or break my budget to obtain them.

You're not seeing a demonstration of this -- though it would be fun -- because he explains it so well in the book that you don't need a demonstration.

For more information on Dr. Hillocks and on this book, see
http://www.heinemann.com/products/E00842.aspx