Paragraphs – 50 Writing Lessons

Writing Lesson Example

FANTASY LIVING

Skills Focus: to use fanciful details

Assignment: Write one or two long paragraphs in which you describe a fantasy room—think
of your favorite kind of room. The description can be as wild and fanciful as you want. Feel free to
invent machines and gizmos that do not and cannot exist.

Begin the assignment by reading aloud to students a detailed, fantastic description. My students
have responded well to the description of a bathroom from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The
Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” This passage is often incredibly stimulating for students; don’t
be surprised if you hear echoes of Fitzgerald in their pieces (writing after models is a terrific way
to learn).

Warm Up: On the board, write the five senses—taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing. Tell students
that their writing should excite and please the reader’s senses; the reader should be swept away
or amazed by the wonderful rooms they describe. Encourage students to have fun with this
assignment.

Discussion: After students read their pieces aloud (students love to share them), start a discussion
of the word imagination. Have a student look up the word in the dictionary and read aloud
the definition. Ask the class where they think ideas come from. And why, do they suppose, do
people love fantasy so much?

50 Writing Lessons:
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