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Wow, this weekend has been so fabulous! I’ve been in Texas with all the Total Language Plus representatives from around the United States. This is an amazing group of women and it has been such a time of learning, encouragement, fun and inspiration.
One of the things I have been reminded about and personally challenged with this weekend is my writing. Now, I don’t just mean writing this blog or any of the other projects that I have in various stages of completion. I’m talking about ANY writing I do.
We want our children to write well and yet how many times do we write simple sentences rather than the more active, alive, descriptive, interesting sentences? Honestly, I’m lazy and in a hurry. Do those characteristics sound like some of the things you may have reflected on about your children? Wow, is that convicting to me.
When I was in ninth grade at public school I had a wonderful English Teacher, Mrs. V. In her class we spent an entire semester writing one paragraph and one month writing the first sentence of that paragraph. Those sentences I collected in a box and still have to this day. Now, mind you, I am not a keeper, I pitch almost everything but these are works of art!
Here’s how it worked:
We took simple sentences, like maybe, “The fruit was good.” Now, we started changing that sentence to make it stronger. Let’s try.
First let’s be more specific. Is it an apple, a peach, an apricot or maybe a grape?
Now, what is it with that word “was”? That is simply not very interesting and doesn’t give us the action. Was is a state of being, not an alive motion. How about tastes, crunched or melted?
Can you picture your fruit yet? What color is it? What is the texture?
How about that taste? Is it sweet, juicy, or tart?
Now what does your sentence look like? It could look like this:
Red, round and shinny, the apple felt firm as my teeth crunched into the tough skin to expose the sweet juicy flesh beneath.
Now do you get a better picture? Doesn’t that create a much more interesting picture for your reader?
Here’s my challenge to you first and then to your children. Take the same sentence and go through the steps above changing it into a more interesting sentence. Part of the fun of the class I had back in 9th grade was seeing how everyone started with the same sentence but how different they were in the end. Leave me a comment with your sentence.
Get excited again about words! Make writing fun for yourself and your kids. It can be art! | 
