Objective: To become active, engaged readers able to respond to a text both critically and creatively.
K. and I have been reading Tuck Everlasting for the past couple weeks, a book that we both enjoy for the vivid prose and the mystery. We're ten chapters into the book. Some days we simply read out loud, other days we do written responses to the text, exploring it from different angles. We look up vocabulary words, discuss the book aloud, make predictions, and creatively respond to the text.
Some of my favorite writing prompts we've done so far:
1-Use the prologue of Tuck Everlasting as a model. Write a short piece in which you use weather to metaphorically set the mood.
2-Write about a memory in as much detail as possible. Then reflect on the ways you've changed since then.
3-Write about a time in the past when you were afraid. First write about it from the perspective of the age you were then, then write about it from your perspective now.
My favorite of K's written responses (done for prompt #1)--
The snow falls, softly, not even making a sound when it reaches the ground. The wind howls like a wolf at the dead of night. An old man, walking, in the shadows of the dark trees. No one knows where he’s going just that he’s on a journey. The darkness is his friend. Hunters with long teeth and nimble feet watch him from the trees but, they do not pounce, they have seen him before walking in the dark woods of night. He has a secret, something only he knows, an unusual awareness. An old man walking in the woods, the trees lean over him like they might fall but, they do not. There goes the moon moving over him like a giant ball about to hit a bat. The old man keeps walking.
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