I'm so excited to share one of my favorite lessons in the guide!! This lesson begins simply by teaching students how to show feelings rather than tell them. I LOVE how Mrs. Tucker took it a step further with her 4th-grade students. On the first day, they charted simple feelings like happy, sad, mad, etc. They took turns at the game of charades acting out the feelings and then adding their actions to the posters to show how they were feeling. On the second day, she had students get out their thesaurus and look up synonyms for those "boring" feelings. Students then created their own posters with how they show that feeling! This lesson is not only teaching our students how to elaborate in their writing but also how to become strategic readers who look for those keywords and clues to help make inferences!
If you haven't done this lesson yet this year, be sure to look it up in your Narrative Grade Level Guide in the section on elaboration!
