This year, my high school students and I discovered the power of starting small. In my creative writing classes, we started a daily sentence study warm-up that I called Word Lab, and it ended up being the most beneficial ten minutes of our class routine. Here’s a glimpse into my process and suggestions for how you can implement this strategy with your own students (including all of my resources!).
First, I curated a list of fifty sentences that would get students thinking about style, craft, and grammatical moves in authentic ways. I focused first on fiction, especially young adult novels to hook students’ interest, but I also drew from nonfiction and poetry. In choosing the passages, I looked for one or more of the following: evocative diction, rhythmic syntax, repetition, interesting use of punctuation or capitalization for stylistic effect, vivid imagery and sensory detail, literary techniques that students might not have been exposed to—really, anything to get them flexing their creative muscles.
(A practical tip: Google Keep is an amazing free tool for organizing these kinds of exercises. When I encountered a passage I liked, I would log it in Keep, color-code it by genre, and use the hashtag feature to label the techniques I noticed, so that later I could search by concept—i.e. “semicolons” or “hooks” or “fragments”—and find a range of mentor sentences. You can also export notes directly into Google Docs!)
At the start of each class, I presented students with one of the passages and we followed four simple steps:
- Transcribe the passage into their digital notebooks
- Analyze the techniques they noticed (first individually, then we would discuss as a whole class and, if necessary, I would guide them towards key elements and help deepen their analysis of why an author might use those particular techniques)
- Imitate the craft and style of the passage by writing their own original sentences
- Share with partners or writing groups and give encouraging feedback
I saw tremendous benefits from this daily routine as students explored grammar and craft in meaningful, organic ways and began to develop their own unique voices and styles. In all honesty, the main barrier to implementing a strategy like this from a teacher’s perspective is time; we are all so overworked and overextended, and it does take quite a bit of time to hunt for these kinds of compelling passages. So that’s why I wanted to share everything I created with you:
- Word Lab Archive (PDF version, including all fifty sentences I used last year)
- Word Lab Archive (Google Docs version; make a copy and edit for your own use)
- Word Lab Slideshow (a link to my Canva presentation for Quarter 1, including a list of “Reading Like a Writer” techniques to guide students and two sample entries I wrote to model the process at the start of the year)
- Student Samples (a link to one of my amazing students’ digital notebooks, with all of her Word Lab entries for Quarter 1)
This strategy is highly adaptable across grade levels and content areas. If you have any questions or need additional resources, I’m always happy to talk through ideas and encourage other teachers—you can find me on Twitter @lauramalafarina. Finally, a quick note of thanks to Penny Kittle and Rebekah O’Dell, who have done incredible work with mentor texts and writing workshop and whose books continually inspire my teaching.
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Laura Malafarina has spent the past fourteen years in public education. She currently teaches English and creative writing and advises the art and literary magazine at Towson High School in Towson, Maryland.