The picture book "The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups" by David Wisniewski spins a simple idea with imaginative and delightful imagery. Read and enjoy this book with your class. Discuss how the author has taken an old idea and brought it to life with creative ideas and vivid word choice. For example, the everyday rule adults enforce on children, "Eat your vegetables," we learn in the book is not because it is good for children. Rather, vegetables once ruled the earth and lorded over humans. Adults now make children eat their vegetables in order to keep the population in check. Instruct your students to brainstorm a list of rules and have them write a narrative about the truth behind this rule.
Students in the third grade frequently over-assume the knowledge of their reader causing them to minimize the details and emotion they provide in their writing. Teach your writers that details can make all the difference between a good piece of writing and something exceptional. Write several statements on the board and label them 'telling' statements. These are sentences that lack details and vivid descriptions. Examples include "Frogs are interesting," "My friends are nice," and "The roller coaster was scary." Divide the class into partnerships. Each duo will choose a telling statement and transform it into a 'showing' narrative paragraph by adding details, vivid description and emotion. Invite each group to present their paragraph to the class.
Written pieces that have voice are interesting and personal, and readers find themselves easily connecting with the text. Teach your students to write with effective voice. Find an example of text that has no voice. An appliance manual, a textbook or a memo offers a good sample. Divide the class into partnerships and have them work together to add voice to the text. A manual will become a personal narrative, a textbook transforms into a story and memos become action events. Have the class read and discuss their work. Alternatively, instruct your students to work this activity in the opposite direction: Instruct students to take the voice out of a good piece of writing. The contrast is helpful for your writers to experience the effect of voice in writing.
Editing and reworking a story can be a laborious and tedious process for many third-grade students. Before beginning the editing stage of writing a narrative, read a quality picture book to your class such as "Click, Clack, Moo" by Doreen Cronin or "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister. Discuss what makes this story a quality narrative. Instruct your students to rewrite this story, taking out the creative voice, the humorous plot ending and the emotion. Compare the two stories and decide what makes the original the best.