Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms

Materials and Technology

Student Interactives

Printouts

Websites

Preparation

 

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

• Apples by Gail Gibbons (Holiday House, 2000)
  
  

• The Supermarket by Kathleen Krull (Holiday House, 2001)
  
  

• The Supermarket by Harlow Rockwell (Simon & Schuster Children's, 1979)
  
  

• Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective? by Brian P. Clearly (Learner Publishing Group, 2000)
  
  

• Kingfisher First Thesaurus by George Beal (Kingfisher, 1993)
  
  

• Apples
  
  

• Large brown paper bags
  
  

• Highlighting markers
  
  

• Thesauri and dictionaries

 

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STUDENT INTERACTIVES

Grades   3 – 12  |  Student Interactive  |  Organizing & Summarizing

ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool

The Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic organizer for activities that ask students to pursue hypertextual thinking and writing.

 

Grades   K – 12  |  Student Interactive  |  Organizing & Summarizing

Alphabet Organizer

Students can use this online tool to print an alphabet chart or pages for an alphabet book.

 

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PRINTOUTS

• Describe Your Apples
  
  
• Blank Alphabet Organizer handout
  
  
• Sample Grocery Adjectives Alphabet Organizer handout
  
  
• Lemon Web
  
  
• Apple Web
  
  
• Form Poem Handout
  
  

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WEBSITES

• Merriam-Webster Online
• Reading Rainbow Book List

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PREPARATION

1.	Obtain and familiarize yourself with Apples by Gail Gibbons and Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective? by Brian P. Cleary. You will also want to look at The Supermarket by Kathleen Krull and The Supermarket by Harlow Rockwell, choosing one as a read-aloud to jumpstart students' thoughts about supermarkets and all the things inside a market. The first book is geared toward slightly older elementary students. Its colorful illustrations provide details about the market including the sections, various aisles, sounds, smells, and fun facts. The second book provides simple illustrations of a mother and son shopping in a market.
2.	Familiarize yourself with the Said Webs process, which provides a method for students to think of alternatives for common words. Kathryn Laframboise, author of "Said Webs: Remedy for Tired Words," outlines the Said Web process as follows: a) As a class, ask students to brainstorm words related to a selected word. b) Agree upon the most common words and circle those words. These words form the list of start words. c) Divide the class into groups of four to five students, and assign one colored marker to each group to designate each team's input and work. d) Have students categorize the start words, linking together similar words using a web, where words in ovals are start words and words added to the web are placed in rectangles. Added words may include both synonyms and antonyms. e) Ask teams to view the other group's webs and to add words to those webs in their assigned team color. f) Display each team's chart and help students create a combined class web. The Said Web requirement of requesting teams to rotate from web to web may be too complex for elementary-level students. A modified process for webbing may be more appropriate for this grade band and is recommended and presented in this lesson (see Session 3). However, you may choose to use the original version if you think it is appropriate for your class.
3.	Print one copy of the Describe Your Apples handout and the Form Poem Handout for each group of three to four students. Print two copies of the blank Alphabet Organizer handout for each student. If you have classroom computers or a computer lab available, you may choose to have students use the online Alphabet Organizer tool for the in-class activity and will need to make only one copy of the blank Alphabet Organizer handout for each student. If you choose to do this, you will need to reserve one 60-minute session (see Session 5) in the lab. You should bookmark the tool on the computers students will be using.
4.	Print the Sample Grocery Adjectives Alphabet Organizer, the Lemon Web, and the Apple Web for your reference (see Sessions 2 and 3). You may choose to make these into transparencies or copy them onto chart paper to share with your students.
5.	Access the ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool to familiarize yourself with how to create a simple web using circles. If you have classroom computers or a computer lab available, you may choose to have students use this tool when making their own webs. You will need to reserve one 60-minute session (see Session 3) in the lab. You should bookmark the tool on the computers students will be using.
6.	Obtain copies of dictionaries and the Kingfisher First Thesaurus by George Beal (or other thesauri) for students to use. An online reference tool like Merriam-Webster Online can also be useful if you are having students work with computers.
7.	Use the Reading Rainbow Book List website to select several picture books to be used by students during Session 6. Obtain copies of these books for students to use.

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