In her writing assignments with the Institute of Excellence in Writing curriculum that she has been doing the last few months there are some banned words. When Sophie writes she isn't allowed to use words like got/get, say/said, go/went, good/bad, etc. The goal is to get her to use stronger verbs and better descriptive adjectives. I introduced her to the thesaurus recently and now she can't seem to write a paragraph with out it. She loves looking up words to find synonyms. I have even caught her just reading it. I don't blame her, words are fun!
Here is her paragraph from today's lesson. She didn't score full points since she didn't include an alliteration or a simile. She also did not include one of the sentence openers they taught her in her last lesson but I think she did remarkably well. Her writing is vastly improving and she seems to enjoy the process a little more now. It does require more work which she does fight at times but I think she is exploring the creative aspects of writing a little more since we switched to this program for writing.
Dwelling of Safety
Beavers build their homes soundly so that opponents can't harm them. They build their lodges at night so that enemies can't see them. Firstly, they accumulate sticks and rocks to form a mound. Then place more on top of the mound to make it higher than water level. After that, bevers tunnel to the center from under the water, dig it out, and create a room. They gather small twigs, which they eat and use to repair their lodge, for when they live in their homes all winter. The lodge is a secure dwelling.
It isn't perfect but it is so much better than what she used to write!
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