SUSAN GOODMAN’S
DYNAMIC NONFICTION WRITING EXERCISES
EXERCISE 1: BRING THE FACTS ALIVE
Have the kids describe an activity or setting, using vivid information from all the senses. Perhaps these scenes can come from your curriculum. Not only will the exercise reinforce learning, your students will also have the facts at their disposal. Otherwise, you may choose to use the exercise as an opportunity to teach research skills.
Familiarize them with the exercise by working through an example. Suggest a graphic scene, say, having one’s teeth cleaned or a cavity filled, and have the kids brainstorm about the different sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and/or sensations this activity involves. List the ideas up on the board. Then talk about how to choose amongst them to write a vivid descriptive paragraph.
Possible topics: waking up from a nightmare, being frightened by a bully, a scary experience in a pool, the hold of a slave ship, a Pilgrim’s house, a greenhouse, the inside of a refrigerator, a dog’s sensory world, a newborn baby’s world, a Pharaoh’s tomb, an erupting volcano, a hot summer day.
EXERCISE 2: MAKE IT MEAN SOMETHING
All too often, facts and statistics are so flatly reported that their significance is lost upon the reader. Have your students rewrite given statements in ways that reinforce how amazing they really are.
Example: A typical sentence about the population of New York is: About 8,000,000 people live in New York City. But, hold on, that’s a huge number—so big that it can be meaningless unless put into more dynamic terms.
Revised description: More than eight million people live in New York City. There are so many New Yorkers that, if laid out in a line, they would stretch all the way to California and back again.
I came up with this example by figuring out the average height of a New Yorker, multiplying it by the population and dividing the resulting number of feet into miles. Then I figured out how far that number of miles would take me. You may find that your students have creative ideas that are this complex. They might not know how to realize them, but working out these descriptions could become a very interesting class activity. As a result, you may want to use this as a group exercise, particularly for younger children.
The object of this exercise is dynamic writing but, once again, you might want to reinforce information the kids have learned by selecting statements from your curriculum. If not, here are a few examples to get you started:
A hawk’s vision is eight times as keen as ours.
In some places, the Amazon River is 200 feet deep.
The largest carrot ever grown weighs 18 pounds, 13 ounces.
EXERCISE 3: WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Have each student decide upon an object or event that is very important to him or her. After reminding them about the need for dynamic language, etc., have them describe this object or event without ever explaining why it is important. The goal is to have the significance of the object or event inform their writing.
EXERCISE 4: A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN
This is a variation upon the preceding exercise.
Have the students write about their reaction to an upsetting event or getting bad news. But they need to convey their emotions by physically describing the room they were in when the event took place or when they heard the bad news. This exercise could describe anything from the death of a beloved pet or family member to having a fight with a friend to getting a shot in a doctor’s office.
Example: A paragraph might start with the following: When I walked into the kitchen, her bowl still sat in its usual corner on the floor. It was surrounded by little chunks of food she usually cleaned up by the end of the day.
EXERCISE 5: JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM? FORGET IT!
In this exercise, you present your students with a factual paragraph from the encyclopedia. The kids rewrite the paragraph, infusing it with a sense of wonder or drama. Before they begin, present an example, and review different ways (vivid language, sense of place, point-of-view, metaphor, plot, etc.) to bring these facts alive.
Example text about pit vipers from The World Book:
“The facial pit of the pit viper is connected with the brain by a well-developed nerve. The nerve, a sense organ, is highly sensitive to heat. It helps the pit viper to locate and secure its warm-blooded prey.”
A dramatized description using plot, adapted from Susan E. Goodman’s Unseen Rainbows, Silent Songs: The World Beyond Human Senses:
In the darkest night, some of the best animal hunters might miss their prey. But the rattlesnake will slither toward his mouse dinner as surely as he would in the light of day. Rattlesnakes, like all other members of the snake family called pit vipers, have an extra set of “eyes” that see only heat.
The snake’s picture of his prey is painted by the mouse’s body temperature. The mouse hides beneath fallen leaves, standing as still as her fear will let her. But it is hopeless. Her heart beats, beats, beats, pushing her temperature warmer than the summer night around her. Her frightened body glows; it’s the bull’s-eye on a target whenever the snake decides to strike.
You may want to find encyclopedic examples based upon your own curriculum. The exercise can also become another chance to strengthen students’ research skills. Here are some possible examples:
Text about the Battle of Gettysburg from The World Book:
“…General George G. Meade led a Northern army of about 90,000 men to victory again General Robert E. Lee’s Southern army of about 75,000…About 4,000 Southerners and more than 3,000 Northerners were killed in the battle. The total number of casualties—those killed, wounded, missing, or captures—was about 23,000 for the North and from 25,000 to 28,000 for the South.”
Text about eagles from The New Book of Knowledge:
“The eagle is a bird of prey—that is, a hunter. It catches and eats small animals and fish. The eagle swoops down, picks up the prey in its talons, and flies off. An eagle, which weighs 3.5 to 5.5 kilograms (8 to 12 pounds), may be able to carry off an animal weighing almost as much as itself. With its beak, it tears the food to pieces. Eagles hunt only in daytime.”
EXERCISE 6: IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS
Here are three ways to heighten students’ awareness of fine detail and put it in their nonfiction writing.
TEXTURE
Have your students look at their clothing and describe the texture of each item. What is it like? How does it look? Feel? How the pieces different from each other? What could they be compared to?
Other options might be describing a tree, the contents of a bed, the contents of a lunch tray.
AIRPLANE RIDE
To get your students thinking about how to generate specific sensory details, have them think about a specific airplane ride they took. Have them list five things that they saw, five things they smelled, five things they heard, five things they touched, and five things they might have tasted. Then have them pick among these details to write a vibrant paragraph.
If some students haven’t been on an airplane, or you just want to introduce some variety, you can suggest depicting a car ride, a shopping trip, a walk in the words, a school assembly, etc.
ROLLERCOASTER RIDE
Use this exercise to get students thinking about perspective. Start by having them write a paragraph describing a thrilling rollercoaster ride from the point of view of a person riding in the front car.
Then have them write about the same ride from the point of view of a person who is terrified.
If you’d like to extend the exercise, have the students choose one of these perspectives to rewrite. Work with them to revise the paragraph, making the sounds and rhythm of the writing reinforce the meaning.
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