Complete Writing Lessons for the Middle Grades

by Marjorie Frank

Incentive Publications/Kids’ Stuff

Children beginning in fourth or fifth grade up through junior high will enjoy writing lessons that can best be described as “zany.” Marjorie Frank, the author, first wrote If You’re Trying to Teach Kids How to Write, You’ve Gotta Have This Book!, but found that many teachers wanted more specific lesson plans for applying her ideas. This book presents those lesson plans explaining and developing the writing process while students work on creative writing projects. In fact, this is one of the best books for teaching writing because it effectively teaches skills in an enjoyable way and is easy for teachers to use. Topics covered include paragraphs, questions, explanations, directions, reports, character studies, idioms, suspense, news articles, fables, myths, posters, advertisements, jokes, diaries, and poetry. Some activities are done on reproducible student pages. This approach requires interaction between student and teacher and is even more effective when more than one student is involved.