Read picture books aloud to demonstrate voice. Identify a story with strong voice, strong emotion and phrasing, and that demonstrates the author's connection with the text. As you read, have students note places in the text where the author's personality came through or where the text demonstrates strong emotion. After reading, hold a class discussion, allowing students to share their findings.
Have students listen to two songs, recorded by different singers in different genres, such as "Every Breath You Take," recorded as both a pop hit by The Police and later as a hip-hop song by Sean "Puffy" Combs. Discuss the different sounds students hear and the emotions they feel the songs evoke. Explain that the trait of voice can create the same differences in writing. After listening to you read the story of "Little Miss Muffet" as a nursery rhyme, have students rewrite it as either a nonfiction science text or a horror story.
Request that students write about an everyday event in a descriptive way. For example, have students write a paragraph describing lunch in the cafeteria. After a couple of students read the paragraphs, have them identify the voice of the paragraph. The voice at this point will probably be described as boring.
Place slips of paper in a bag that contain different emotions such as funny, sad, scary and enjoyable. Ask students to choose a slip of paper and instruct them to rewrite a description of lunch to show the emotion on the slip of paper. Instruct students to keep the story true and factual but to add details that make it read with the emotion on their slip of paper. For example, a cup of green gelatin in a scary story might be described as a cup of slimy, smelly sludge, but in a funny story as a jiggling, wiggling green blob. After writing, allow students to share their writing.
Ask students to think of a popular children's character most all kids can relate to. Without mentioning the character's name or too many story details, have students write a pretend journal entry in that character's voice. The entry can describe anything the students feel that character might do in his day-to-day life. Students should mention things such as items the character eats, clothes he wears, friends he has and things he likes to do, in an effort to get others to guess who the character is.