Customer Reviews

Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities That Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Effectively

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Paper Lightning-Prewriting Activities that Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Effectively lives up to its title. Darcy Pattison's book is jam-packed with creative writing strategies. She begins with oral storytelling and rehearsing - a great strategy for sequencing events and adding details. To encourage students to use specific nouns and active verbs, Darcy has included a Sensory Word Bank Chart. Each chapter has teacher directions, chapter overview, getting started suggestions, discussion and student directions. The book includes a section on how to give life to your characters and how to organize facts for report writing. There's a nice surprise at the end of the book-a list of sample answers. This book should be on every writing teacher's resources shelf. And if you're a writer, you'll want to apply these writing strategies into your own work!

Over the years I've purchased dozens of instructional writing books - both for myself and to use in my classroom with my students. Paper Lightning is the first book to ever meet the needs of both the student and the adult. As I was reading Ms. Pattison's text, I realized that the ideas she was sharing were pure gold. The format is clear, concise and to-the-point. No wading through a thirty page chapter to unveil the one nugget of advice that struck a chord. No yawning over filler material. No trudging through material I've already seen. The ideas and activities offered in Paper Lightning are fresh, fun and practical. She goes through every step necessary to teach a student (or an adult) how to write. Each chapter grabs the attention of the reader with quirky headings like Ugly Writing, Thinking Mean, and Fools and Noodleheads. Students can't wait to find out more!

This is one book I plan to use in my curriculum next year, but I won't turn loose of this copy. This one is all mine. It will NEVER be more than a few feet away from me on my own desk at home. The ideas generated from this simple 106 page volume are too precious to part with! This reviewers recommends it for all ages. It should be on every writer's reference desk and every classroom. Thank you, Ms. Pattison. Excellent book.

So many practical ideas. Well organized. Will hate to give this copy to our writing teacher; may have to buy her a copy so that I can keep this one.

DD

Librarian

Paper Lightning is a practical, easy-to-use resource that will get even the most reluctant writer excited about putting pen to paper. The minute I opened this book, I wanted to start using the activities with the students in my school. The book starts with an oral storytelling activity, then goes on to teach students how to use strong words and details in their writing. The nonfiction section includes activities on persuasive writing and organizing facts. The fiction section teaches students how to create characters, conflict, plot, setting, and mood. There's also a section on folk tales with an enjoyable "Fools and Noodleheads" activity.

Darcy Pattison's book is full of meaningful writing activities that require very little teacher preparation time. Each activity includes clear and concise background information for the teacher and student materials that are ready to be copied and used.

Paper Lightning will do more than spark creativity; it will zap young writers with enthusiasm and excitement. After completing the "Shuffle a Character" activity, a fourth-grade student proudly showed me what she had written and said, "I wish my character were a real person. I would like to meet her."

Cheryl Davis, Elementary School Librarian

Being an elementary school librarian, I am always looking for excellent professional resources for our staff. I have definitely found one with Darcy Pattison's Paper Lightning. Ms. Pattison gives numerous fun and engaging activities for improving fictional and personal narrative, persuasive, and informative writing. Teachers will easily be able to incorporate these activities into their writing instruction. Ms. Pattison's directions are extremely coherent and the activities themselves can be adjusted to almost any grade level or time constraint. I am very eager to share this book with our classroom teachers.

If gifted author and skilled writing teacher Darcy Pattison had a mantra, it would focus on prewriting. She is convinced that thinking and planning before writing will enable one to produce much better compositions. The creative activities she propagates in Paper Lightning are designed to stimulate thought, reflection, memories and research. She advocates beginning with oral storytelling and then goes on to present practical exercises that are original, fun, and worthwhile in learning to write well.

Whether a novice or experienced writer, a student in middle school or high school, Darcy's worksheets will teach you how to use strong words and add sensory details to your writing. You'll learn to organize your facts and to write persuasive opinion pieces. If you choose to write fiction, you can work through nine chapters on such topics as characters, conflict, plot, and mood. These hands on activities conclude with two chapters on writing folk tales.

I am going to choose activities from this book when I give school presentations to students who want to know how to write better.

Outstanding resource book for teachers! Paper Lightning by Darcy Pattison gives great ideas for teachers to use in their classrooms to hook students on writing. Each section gives complete steps to teaching a writing technique such as adding details, organizing facts, planning to persuade and much, much more. And some of the titles are unique like my favorite "Fools and Noodleheads"! An added bonus, in the back of the book, she gives sample answers so teachers don't have to do a thing but teach the lesson. Fantastic book!!!

In this new paperback, children's author Darcy Pattison uses a step-by-step approach to teaching the key elements in developing writing skills. Chapter one starts with oral prewriting activities that are practiced and practiced again before pen is put to paper. Each chapter suggests activities that will develop writing skills from adding sensory details to sorting exercises for categorizing information in a rubric. The "Thinking Mean" chapter describes developing complications to the plot when writing fiction pieces. The chapters build on previous skills from the beginning of the book to the end. I think even a child interested in being a writer would love to have a copy of this book. It is very understandable, organized well, and the activities are super, and I am a former English teacher who could have used these suggested activities. The author does suggest there will be some grumbling when having students do activities more than once and that would be true in today's large classrooms, but I tried that first oral storytelling exercise suggested to be retold three times, and it really worked even with a little grumbling and made the kids think about ways to change and expand their tales. This book is a writing skills bonanza for elementary to junior high teachers and a handbook for young writers to follow.