Do you feel like your students are getting bored of writing? The holidays are the perfect time to take a short break from your regular lessons and do something to improve writing engagement.
Try Holiday Themed Mad Libs
Mad Libs are a great way to review parts of speech for your students. They are also funny and engaging!
If you are not familiar with Mad Libs, they are fill-in-the-blank prewritten stories. Students suggest words with the given part of speech and the chosen words are added to the correct blanks for a silly story twist.
I love using Mad Libs in my classroom because it secretly helps me to teach the power of word choice. Even my struggling students can often make word selections and delight in the responses when the story is read. Hearing strange choices in a sentence can actually help train their ear for when we revise!
Sprinkle In Student Relays
When I was a freshman in high school, my typing teacher used to have us practice our typing by writing relay stories. I found it to be a lot of fun and when I adapted it for my second graders, they loved it too.
To have relay stories, you’ll need to start with a hook or prompt. Something like, “One day I walked outside and the whole town was _.” You will want to intentionally leave out the ending of the sentence.
Next you’ll want to determine the amount of time each writer will have to write. I would suggest that each person after the first person to write be given time outside of the writing time to read what was previously written.
Then students will begin writing when you say go and stop at the predetermined time (5-10 minutes is ideal). At the end of the relay you should have a fairly engaging story.
Add a Dash of Shared Report Writing
My students have always loved researching and writing reports. Why not capitalize on that during times when they need a little more incentive to stay focused?
Shared report writing is a part of the common core standards that I feel is often overlooked but the holidays are the perfect time to add it in. Students love to work in groups and writing a shared report is a great way to do it.
I would suggest picking one topic for the whole class and then splitting up pieces of the report to assign to groups. For example, you might choose reindeers at Christmas Time or turkeys for Thanksgiving. Each group would then be assigned one mini topic such as habit to research and create a text feature. The group would then design or publish a page to turn in for their assignment.
Don’t be fooled - these 3 ways to combat student boredom and improve writing engagement are perfect for any time of the year. Personally, I like to sprinkle them throughout the year in between starting new units. It’s a great way to add additional practice with different genres. I hope you’ll give one (or all) of these a try and let me know how they go.
Ready to plan your own mini-unit? Get started with my free guide.
