Yesterday, I gave the grade 5 class I’m working with the task of revising their first drafts.

Here’s the prompts they were given:

1. Add a sound to your story (Onomatopoeia – anyone know when they actually learn that term?)

Some of the students already had lots of sounds in their stories, so they were encouraged to consider adding more or to move on to the next prompt:

2. Add an emotion to your story but Show don’t Tell.

We talked a bit about how emotions are evident – how your body physically reacts to the emotion or how you can tell someones emotions by their body language and actions.

I plan to save my other prompt ideas for a final revision:

3. Grammar checklist.

4. Add a sensation or describe how something feels.

5. Add a taste if appropriate to your story.

Some of them were keen to revise and improve their stories. But some of them were reluctant. One even refused (in a very sweet manner).

What prompts do you use for revising?

In other writing news…

I made the selection for the Think Kid Think March Madness Poetry Competition.

I have visions of this being like the time my softball team made it to the provincials. The other teams were filled with incredibly tall slim girls decked out in crisp white ball uniforms. We felt a bit drab in our sweatpants and t-shirts. I still wonder what they fed those girls.

I have a nice selection of kidlit poetry to browse through for prep.