Using Mini-Lessons to Enhance Writing

Using Mini-Lessons to Enhance Writing

In essay six, Sue Rowe discusses how she used mini-lessons in her seventh-grade classroom to encourage her students to revise their writing. She had become frustrated because it was so difficult to get her students to revise what they had written. She knew she had to get students to “realize that they have the power to manipulate the written language to produce clear, precise writing, they will be more willing to change their words, and not just correct their mistakes” (Weaver 100).
In order to get her students to “play around with their sentences” (101).Ms. Rowe developed two types of mini-lessons. The first was the elimination of verbs of being. She wanted students to see that “by replacing be verbs with more vivid (preferably action) verbs, students find their writing is less wordy and contains less repetition” (101). As she taught these lessons, she used sentences that were examples of her real-life to get her students’ a...