ELA8, CSS, Sferrazza

Writing Goal: Descriptive Essay

To deepen your understanding of sense of place through description, you will develop a descriptive piece on a place that is or was meaningful to you. To capture the essence of this place, the feeling or mood you will need to use specific details to describe your topic.

Workshop Overview:  Don't forget that the Writer's Workshop consists of 2 parts.

1.  Writer's Notebook:  Open your writer's notebook template for Unit 4 and complete the 2 teacher-directed activities and 3 student-directed activities.  

2.  Major Writing Piece:  Descriptive Essay

1. Learn how to write a descriptive essay.
2. Look at an example.
3. Plan your own descriptive essay.
4. Write a first draft and get some feedback to revise your writing.
5. Revise your writing.
6. Submit your final draft. 

Writing Targets:  By the end of this workshop you will have worked toward incorporating the following criteria into your piece:

 Your writing will be assessed out of a six-point scale. 

Ideas and Content: (6/6)

Personal memories are used to reflect on a meaningful place creating a distinct mood and conveys the importance of the place to the reader.  

Organization and Supporting Details: (6/6)

The description is effectively organized in a highly logical fashion possibly using either spatial order, chronological order and order of importance. 

Word Choice: (6/6)

The piece used many specific adjectives and nouns and strong action verbs to include rich sensory details and create vivid images. 

Sentence Fluency: (6/6)

A wide variety of fluent sentences are used that vary in length and how they begin. 

Conventions: (6/6)

Work has been proofread and there are almost no errors in basic punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. 

Revision Mark (6/6)

 The student has very successfully revised the piece based on all feedback provided by the teacher.