Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities That Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Effectively

Whether teaching fiction or nonfiction, educators will discover the perfect activity for sharpening their students' writing skills in this helpful guide book. Emphasizing the importance of prewriting exercises, this handbook lists a variety of practical tools for young writers, including storytelling, group work, hands-on organizing, and brainstorming. Geared toward middle to high school students, these easy-to-follow lessons are adaptable to nearly all modes of writing—descriptive, expository, narrative, informational, or persuasive—and the detailed teacher notes allow for simple application of these projects with minimal preparation time.

Whether teaching fiction or nonfiction, educators will discover the perfect activity for sharpening their students' writing skills in this helpful guide book. Emphasizing the importance of prewriting exercises, this handbook lists a variety of practical tools for young writers, including storytelling, group work, hands-on organizing, and brainstorming. Geared toward middle to high school students, these easy-to-follow lessons are adaptable to nearly all modes of writing—descriptive, expository, narrative, informational, or persuasive—and the detailed teacher notes allow for simple application of these projects with minimal preparation time.

Darcy Pattison is a teacher of writing and professional teacher development classes and the author of 19 Girls and Me, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman, Searching for Oliver K. Woodman, and The Wayfinder. She lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas.