Show, Don't Tell

This past week we have been working on Show, Don't Tell in writing. It is a part of the Common Core State Standard W.5.3 and we have been looking at how to elaborate our writing. We examined this concept in connection to our reading concept of inference and how we use our schema and what is in the writing to put the pieces together to determine what the author is trying to tell us. I emphasized that an author has to assume that their reader is smart and instead of just telling them what is happening, they need to leave little story clues.

We took some basic tell sentences like "It was cold" and changed them to make them show sentences like "The chilled air was a frigid -8 degrees Celsius as I stepped out of the car and my feet crunched on the hard, crunchy earth." First we made a word box to brainstorm some words that related to the sentence and then we wrote some sentences to show the concept.

Here are two student paragraphs to Show, Don't Tell. 

Patriks:

My friend is a joker

that makes me laugh till

crying and feel like I can’t breathe. Also when

I look at him he looks

like a legendary comedian

and like a flying banana

that will keep flying, flying

and flying to heaven. He will always have a joke

whenever I go to school and whenever

he goes to school. I also think he gets paid for making jokes.

Klaudija:

She is kind and caring all day long. She cheers when she knows that we are going to lose. Every day I get a present from her. She is helpful and very happy too. We smile play and draw. She is a perfect friend.