Marian Bradshaw

ELEM/SCED 663: Advanced Trends in Education

July 16, 2015
#3: Content Area Teaching Ideas Assignment
Writing, regardless if it is argumentative, persuasive, or descriptive, is a difficult skill for
students to learn. Descriptive writing requires a certain set of skills, focus, and lots of practice.
Teachers generally use a variety of mini-lessons to help their students learn how to write
descriptively. Some of these lessons revolve around showing not telling, i.e. making stories
come alive. Lesson plans generally have a description of what to do. Besides the explanation of
how to conduct the lesson, most lesson plans today contain Standards and/or Core Curriculum
Standards. In addition, having Learning Outcomes is a common part of lesson planning in
writing. These current trends have to be considered by teachers as they plan their lessons and
instruct students in descriptive writing or in any other task.
The lessons I choose to focus on were on teaching students how to make their writing
come alive with show not tell strategies. Some of these lessons included standards and learning
outcomes while others did not.
Lesson 1: Show Not Tell by the Dade School.net
This first lesson from the Dade School.net, is intended for upper elementary or early
middle school students. The lesson begins with a quick explanation of what show not tell
means. It goes on to give examples of telling sentences and showing sentences. Telling
sentence: It was an unusual cat. Showing sentence: With yellow eyes glowing red, long black
fur that stood on end, a mouth full of sharp pointed teeth that emitted a yowl like a tiger, I
knew that the small animal before me was no ordinary cat. The lesson continues to say that in

developing a story, the writer needs to reveal their character by what they say, think, and do; by
describing them; by what other characters say about them; and by how other characters react to
them. Towards the end of the lesson plan, the guided practice is suggested which includes
walking into the classroom, waving your arms and pacing around with eyes squinted, yelling, I
cant believe this! This isnt fair! At this time, the teacher is supposed to engage in a
conversation with his/her students asking them what they thought happened and record their
responses on a chart. Later on, the students will get some independent practice to convert some
showing sentences and paragraphs into telling sentences and paragraphs: The cake was
delicious (telling sentence that needs to be turned into a showing sentence) or The garden was
beautiful (telling sentence that needs to be turned into a showing paragraph). There were no
learning outcomes or standards addressed in this lesson.
Lesson 2: Show-Me Sentences
The second lesson from Readwritethink.org is intended for grades 6-12. The lessons
author, Lawrence Baines, ph.D, created this recurring lesson for grades 6-12 (this lesson is meant
to be reused during the year to remind students of this effective writing technique). The lesson is
very thorough in that it has an overview, references NCTE/IRA National Standards for the
English Language Arts, indicated student objectives, tells what the materials and resources are
needed (whiteboard or blackboard and handouts) and, finally, outlines the steps in instructions
and activities. The lesson is essentially like the first lesson in that Dr. Baines discusses the idea
of showing rather than telling with the class. He uses the example of a student talking about
being in an automobile accident in a casual conversation. The instructions go on to ask the class
to help rewrite the sentence, The car lands awkwardly, causing it to roll so that it comes alive.
Probing questions to get to a showing sentence include, What does land awkwardly looks like?

Is the car driving itself? and Is there enough detail provided to visualize what happened?
Students are encouraged to include sensory details (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory) and write
a new sentence, which are then shared with the rest of the class. Afterwards, the students are
given a handout, Show-Me Sentences Handout, and are asked to review the first example, by
first reading the telling sentence and then the showing sentence. The students are asked how
they can improve the showing sentence even more. They are then instructed to recreate the
remaining telling sentences by incorporating visual and sensory details. These sentences are
then shared with the class.
Lesson 3: Show Dont Tell Using Action Words
In the third lesson from the University of North Carolina School of Education, intended
for Grades 3-5 grades, starts off with the learning outcomes, followed by the time required,
materials, and activities (including modeling, guided practice, and independent practice). The
lesson plan also included the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, as well as
North Carolina curriculum alignment in English Language Arts. The lesson begins very similarly
to the last two lessons with a discussion of showing v. telling. However, the teacher is
supposed to stress that a good author would use action words to accomplish this: Freddy was
sad (telling) v. Freddy cried (showing).
Next, the teacher is supposed to read the book The One in the Middle Is a Green
Kangaroo by Judy Blume, or something comparable that does a good job of describing the
actions that reveal the characters feelings. Students are supposed to give examples from the
story of how the author uses action words to show how the character feels. After this discussion,
students are to tell a story of someone getting a surprise present (big eyes, hands on face, big O
for a mouth) by using actions and gestures. In the guided practice sections, students are

supposed to fill out a Show dont Tell worksheet with various prompts like, I was shy, I
was embarrassed, etc. Students are encouraged to act out the action for their peers so they can
write down what they are observing in each other. Later on, students are encouraged to relook at
pieces they have written and find places where they tell and not show and revise those spots.
Groups of students are also encouraged to look for other authors who use action verbs to show
dont tell and then share out to the class.
These three lessons were all very similar with some merits to each of them, particularly
lesson 3. The trigram graphic organizer below visually shows how the lessons overlapped. Here
are some of the commonalities that I could not include in my graphic organizer:
A: Lessons 1 and 2: Students practice writing sentences.
B:Lessons 1 and 3: These lessons involved a physical action. In lesson 1, it was a teacher
acting out a scene; in lesson 3, it was the students acting out for each other.
C: Lessons 2 and 3: These lessons both had very detailed lessons that included standards,
student objectives/learning outcomes, materials and resources, and a handout for practice.
D: All lessons: All lessons discussed what show v. tell is and all had some practice
involved in recreating sentences from telling to showing.
In all of the lessons, very little technology was utilized, minus the first one that used a
power point presentation. Mostly these lessons involved pen and paper and a whiteboard/
blackboard very low tech equipment.

Comparison of the Three Lessons

Lesson 1: Show Not Tell by the Dade School.net (brown circle)
Lesson 2: Show-Me Sentences (blue circle)
Lesson 3: Show Dont Tell Using Action Words (green circle)

Lesson 1
-explanation
-examples
-a powerpoint
presentation

Lesson 2
-contains an
overview
-sensory details
and imagery
-extension activity
(write a narrative
and peer review)

Lesson 3
-using action verbs
-use of a model text
-student dramatization
of sentences
-relook at previous work
and revise for action
verbs
-teacher highlight areas
for improvement
-continued referencing
in other books

Restructuring lessons
If I were to restructure these lessons for my middle school EAL students, I would do a
number of things. These lessons provide a basic introduction to descriptive writing, but I would
expand upon them to include more cooperative strategies, more technology, and more selfassessment. I would keep the standards that lessons 2 and 3 outlined as standards. Standards are
what guide instruction and what holds teachers accountable to themselves and to their students;
they are one of the most significant trends in curriculum and instruction.
First of all, I would make the lesson more experiential and more student-centered. A
series of four lessons by Victoria Polega, Make a Splash! Using Dramatic Experience to
Explore the Moment from Readwritethink.org has some good ideas to make teaching about
descriptive language more alive and dramatic. In her first lesson, she utilizes dramatic,
unexpected scenes involving students (student-centered classroom). She also uses a model text
like Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos and Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson
Haddix, amongst others to introduce texts that are rich in sensory details, images, and
vocabulary. excerpt[s] should make students feel like they are experiencing the moment with
the character. These novels are very appealing to middle school students.
In Ms. Polegas second lesson, she again uses drama (social-emotional learning) to
introduce the lesson by exaggerating the greatness of a sentence that is really boring writing.
She then instructs the teacher to have students compare the boring sentence to Jack Gantos
description of that same scene (critical thinking). As she states in her lesson plan: Invite
students to consider the authors craft by discussing what Jack Gantos does to make his readers
feel like they are in math class with Joey, experiencing everything that he is experiencing.

Secondly, I would infuse more technology into the lesson, one of the current trends under
Trends in Curriculum and Instruction. I would have students work with a partner of their choice
to create a Google Doc where they can work on concurrently and collaboratively. In that Google
Doc, they would cooperatively write a story together. This activity would fulfill their individual
needs in learning, specifically critical thinking, creativity, and social-emotional learning.
Students love working together and this would be the perfect opportunity for them to do so in an
academic setting.
As they are creating their story, I would infuse several lessons from Nancie Atwells
Lessons That Change Writers handbook and binder. These lessons would be very useful to guide
students as they learn about descriptive writing. Lesson 9 The Rule of So What? Lesson 10
Thoughts and Feelings, Lesson 12 Narrative Leads, and lesson 18 Movie Behind My
Mind would be particularly helpful to guide students as they compose their story.
Finally, I would have students self-edit their story. This would be practice in selfassessment. They would use a rubric that we as a whole class would have created together (selfassessment). I would also encourage them to use a number of the web-based tools to polish their
writing (technology trend). Two of those tools would be Analyzemywriting.com (to analyze their
writing for mistakes and readability level) and Hemingway (deep analysis tool, especially for
passive voice since their writing should be in active voice).
Later, I would have them peer-edit other pairs story and give them feedback. This
would act as authentic assessment as its coming from their peers, whom they have a lot of
respect for. This peer-editing process fulfills the social-emotional learning, critical thinking and
creativity needs of middle school students while keeping it student-centered, as the students are
the ones who are the center of the learning process.

Citations
Atwell, N. (2002). Lessons that change writers. Portsmouth, NH: Firsthand/Heinemann.
Make a Splash! Using Dramatic Experience to Explode the Moment - ReadWriteThink.
(n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015. goo.gl/jIAuj8
Sample Lesson for Show Not Tell (n.d). Retrieved July 16, 2015. goo.gl/QkBol0
Show-Me Sentences - ReadWriteThink. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015. goo.gl/hbBT1o
Show, don't tell: Using action words. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015.
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4028