Page 47 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade8_Flipbook

Writing Workshop 4 (continued)
Planning Characters
5. Use a Characterization graphic organizer like the one in Activity 1 develop each
of your characters. Add more spokes to the graphic organizer as needed, and make copies of the graphic organizers for other characters in your story.
Drafting
6. Use Peck’s story and your class-constructed model story, your notes, and your graphic organizers as you and your partner draft a story opening together. You might begin in the middle of the action, or you might begin with characters in dialogue.
7. Participate with another partner pair in sharing and responding to ideas for refining your story opening. Mark the draft and take good notes so you will remember what you discussed.
8. Use your models and your notes while you and your partner continue drafting your story. Don’t be afraid to modify your original plot line, as long as both partners agree.
9. Participate again in sharing and responding to ideas for refining the middle of your story. Remember to take good notes.
10. Reread the endings of your model stories. Remember that your goal is to write a story with a well-developed resolution. With your partner, draft an ending for your story.
Revising
11. Once you have drafted your story, begin to think about how you can improve your draft by revising. Use the following considerations to guide revision.
• Reread your draft and find each detail of the setting. Consider where you might add sensory details to make the setting believable for the reader, and revise accordingly.
• Reread your draft and consider where you might use additional dialogue to reveal information about the characters and to move the plot along. Revise and add dialogue or substitute text with dialogue. Aim for a minimum of eight sentences of dialogue.
• Highlight figurative language used in your story. You’re your partner, decide where you could add more figurative language, and take notes about the effect you hope to achieve. Improve your story by including these ideas for the best effect.
• Identify the tone you hope to convey in a passage or in the whole story. With your partner, find where you can use more precise words, or diction, to better communicate the tone you’re working toward.
• Revisit the ending of your story. Then find places in the story to add foreshadowing that hints at the ending, but does not give it away.
• Look for places in your story where there is a shift in time or location, or when
12 SpringBoard® Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities Grade 8
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