“I Am Sorry for Your Loss” Tutorial

How to Write a Letter of Condolence

How many times have you had to write a letter of condolence? Unfortunately, your teens and students will have to write some in their lifetimes.

Your teens will have friends or family members who experience losses in their lives. Maybe their friends will be in an accident or will have to leave all of their friends behind to move to another city. Perhaps someone close to their friends will die, and your teens will want to make a connection to acknowledge the loss.

But how do they begin? How do they know what to say?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Writing Prompts Bundle

SHARON’S BLOG

Help your students gain a perspective on history with our bundle of writing prompts for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

What does he share with Apostle Paul? Did he advocate the use of violence? And what was his original name?

Use these five prompts on Martin Luther King Jr. to spark an interest in this important historical figure and his life.

Suitable for students in grades 5 – 12.

Use This Evaluation Form for Your Student’s How-to Essay

SHARON’S BLOG

In this week’s post, you’ll find a mini lesson explaining what goes into a how-to or process essay, and you can download a printable evaluation form you can use to grade your 7th-12th graders.

Give the Gift of Yourself This Christmas

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Do your children and teens wish they could communicate better with the special people in their lives? Sometimes it’s hard to talk or to come up with something brilliant to say. Other times they may have trouble connecting with family members.

At this time of year, they may be wondering what to give that special family member or friend. But do they know that once in a while, the family member doesn’t want a new item? What they really would value is something personal from your child.

The following pages allow your children and teens to jot down their thoughts and ideas and then share them with others. Their gift now becomes personal and meaningful.

Each prompt comes with a free, colorful page you can print out for them and they can write on. Collect them all and begin a journal, if you wish. If your children plan to give them as gifts, they can give certain pages as presents or gather all the pages into one gift.

These prompts are suitable for people in grades 5 – 12.

Ready? Let’s do this . . .

Thanksgiving Prompts—Good for the Soul

SHARON’S BLOG

We want our students and our children to develop attitudes of gratefulness, to say thank you without being prompted, and to appreciate any worldly goods and advantages they have.

Use these four Thanksgiving prompts to get them thinking about their blessings and how they can bless others.

Intro to Writing, Parts 1 and 2

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Intro to Writing

Do your students get stuck when they have to write a paragraph or an essay?

I have a secret I’d like to share with you.

Your students do not have to write a paragraph or a whole essay every time they put pencil to paper. One of the best ways to unplug the fear of writing is to do some of the prepare-for-writing tasks but never write the whole paragraph or essay.

It’s called practice, as when members of a basketball team practice dribbling or passing. The team does not play a game every time they get together. They practice pieces of the game.

So let’s practice brainstorming and organizing ideas.

3 Prompts to Celebrate the Olympics

SHARON’S BLOG

Celebrate the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics with us. Here are three prompts and one BONUS prompt for your 5th-12th graders to enjoy as the festivities get underway! Some are light and fun. Others involve controversies and get your students thinking. Be sure to download the colorful worksheet in #1.

On your mark . . . get set . . .

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1. Let’s Pack

You’re packing to go to Paris, France, for the 2024 Summer Olympics, but you can pack only 26 things. It’s a good thing there are 26 letters in the alphabet because you are going to pack one item for every letter in it. What will you pack that begins with “A”? With “B”? With “Z”???

Download this colorful worksheet to help you pack. >>

Composition: Let’s Make it Easier

You’ve just read the title of this post and are laughing uncontrollably. I get it. Writing is hard. My students confirm this, and so do yours.

Many moms report that their students have ideas in their heads but can’t get them on paper. Let’s start fixing that today.

What creates this strange head-to-hand disconnect? One major reason is that students don’t organize their thoughts or plan their papers. Big mistake. They think it’s a time waster; but you know otherwise.

The following is a short activity on opinion writing, devised for success. Practice these four steps to writing with your students. They won’t actually be writing this essay, which is one of the reasons this activity works so well.

New Tutorials to Document Sources

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Okay. I’ll admit it. I abhor the nit-picky rules about citing sources and making a works-cited page. The rules are tedious. They’re boring. And they’re nerve wracking.

So, if it is hard for adults (which I like to think I am), what must our children and teens think of it? After all, writing a report is hard enough without all the “extra” stuff about citing sources.

On top of that, the rules change! About a year after The Power in Your Hands was published, with its lessons on citing sources and documenting a report, the Modern Language Association changed their rules.

What is a student to do?

Fun with Outlines. No, Really.

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Could your students use a little help creating outlines? And what does a bowl of salad have to do with outlines?

My husband tells me he always made his outlines after he’d seen what he had written. I imagine this is fairly common.

But is an outline necessary? Not exactly. You can read about my sticky-note method here.

What is important, though, is organizing the material, and that is where students have trouble. They do not want to take the time to organize their thoughts, ideas, or material before they write.

Personally, I benefit from even a casual outline. That way, I don’t have to start with the introduction and work my way down to the conclusion; I have the pleasure of beginning wherever I like, where I feel the most comfortable. Then I can fill in the rest of my article later by using the organized points in my informal outline.

Whether your students use sticky notes or a more formal outline, they’ll benefit from these familiar outline ideas.