Wow! Language

I have two favorite ways of having students notice "Wow! Language" by authors that I hope they will try to emulate in their writing.

1. Students work in what we call literature circles, where each child in the group has a different job; they rotate the jobs among the children in the group while we are on one book. A higher level, second grade book takes one-and-a-half to two weeks, and there are eight jobs. Some of these jobs can be combined if there are fewer than eight students in the group. Several of these serve the purpose of pointing out specific language in the book. The Connectors find a passage in the book that reminds them of something in their lives or in another book. They have the group find the passage in their books, read it aloud for the group, and then tell why it `connects' for them. (Anyone is welcome to tell why something connects for them, whether or not they are the connector at the time the connector shares with the group. This is true of most of the jobs.)

The job of the Word Wizards is to look for words that they think are used well, or words that they think someone in the group might not know. They point out the words in the book for their group, and tell why they think the word has been used well, or look it up and define it if they think people might not know what it means. They are to find four or five words a session.

2. All kids in any reading group are to mark their books with pieces of Post-It note as they read. What they mark are interesting words. They are the same words the Word Wizard uses as described above. They go back after reading, and put the words in their binders in the "interesting words" section. Every once in a while, I ask them to pick out three or more words from their interesting words lists, use them in a piece of writing, and underline them. My students are into onomatopoeia, and those words often show up in these exercises.