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Sample Weekly Writing Plan

I was once in a small homeschooling co-op and wrote up a weekly writing plan for us to follow.

Here is a six day, day by day assignment guide that we used. 

 

Day-by-Day Assignment Guide

Saturday or Day One
On Saturdays, Writing Skill Builder activities are done. Cycle through these on a regular basis to help build writing skills.

Example of these include:

• Sentence Writing

• Writing Outlines

•  Word Choice

•  Writing Topic Sentences

• Brainstorming

• Writing Conclusions

• Writing Beginnings

• Writing Titles

• Writing Details
   

Example Skill Building Activity:
Topic: Sentence Writing (insha Allah, there will be example activities on the other eight)
Goal: Compose attention-grabbing sentences

Assignment: Compose at least 12 sentences using all of the following criteria:
 

A. Varied Beginnings
a. Two sentences must begin with a “Who” (noun/subject) e.g. The old man…….
b. Two sentences must begin with a “What” (verb) e.g. Walking down the street, ……
c. Two sentences must begin with a “When” (adverb) e.g. This morning,
d. Two sentences must begin with a “Where” (adverb) e.g. In the garden, …..
e. Two sentences must begin with a “Why” e.g. Because my brother hit me, ……
e.g. In order to watch a movie, I…..
f. Two sentences must begin with “How” (adverb) e.g. Quickly, she raced across the room.
 

B. Adjectives

a. Use plenty of adjectives to describe any and all nouns
 

C. Nouns

a. Name them------------à Instead of “The teacher,” try: Mr. Jones, our science teacher,…….
b. Describe them --------à Instead of “The man,” try: The decrepit, old man…….

D. Use a variety of sentence types: declarative, imperative, exclamatory, interrogative. (You will have to rewrite some sentences
if are ALL declarative.)

E. Proofread to make sure you have fulfilled all the requirements above
 

F. Proofread for: (capitalization, punctuation, spelling errors ) and make sure your sentences MAKE SENSE! Read them aloud.
Read what they say, NOT what you meant them to say.
 

G. Be sure to put a heading on your work
Date
Topic

 

Tip: Get your ideas for sentence topics from the following sources:

1. Pictures. Write sentences about pictures. Or look outside your window and write about what you see.
2. Books. Skim through a book (or other written material) and pick out 12 interesting nouns to write about.
3. Your head.

Other brief examples of skill building activities:
Writing Outlines: Read and outline an article it. How Stuff Works articles (www.howstuffworks.com) are good for this.

Word Choice:
Activity 1: Use the thesaurus to generate lists of words to replace bland words.
Pick an overused word and see how many synonyms you can come up with.
Activity 2: Look over an old piece of writing (or someone else’s or an article or news story) and see if you can
replace some of the words with more appealing ones.
Writing Topic Sentences
Activity 1: Write topic sentences/main idea for a group of given words (ex apple, orange, banana-à FRUITS
Activity 2: Pick out main ideas of paragraphs.
 

Brainstorming
Activity 1: Choose the best or possible graphic organizers for a particular writing topic/form
Activity 2: Brainstorm using a word web
Activity 3: Brainstorm using a T chart or Venn Diagram
Activity 4: Research and list other types of graphic organizers. Make (and add to) a Graphic organizer book.
 

Writing Conclusions
Activity 1: Read paragraphs with the end missing. Compose a suitable ending.
Activity 2: Rewrite the ending of a paragraph (yours or someone else’s)
 

Writing Beginnings
Activity 1: Rewrite the beginning of a paragraph (yours or someone else’s --See list below)
Activity 2: Given a fictitious topic, use the beginning types below to write at least three beginnings.

 Announcement
 Background information
 Bold and challenging statement
 Climactic lead
 Definition
 Dialogue
 Enumerated general statement
 Figurative language
 Hypothetical situation/scenario
 Opinion
 Personal experience
 Question
 Quotation
 Riddle
 Striking fact/statistic
 

Writing Titles

Activity 1: Given paragraphs without titles, generate interesting titles.
Activity 2: Write headlines/captions for pictures.
Writing Details
Activity 1: Tell what detail sentences do not belong in a paragraph.
Activity 2: Given a main point, provide detail sentences to support the point.

Sunday or Day Two

Topic: Beginning your Weekly Writing Assignment
Goal: Do prewriting and writing on assigned writing topic
 

Assignment:
 

1. Prewriting activities: Use a suitable graphic organizer to brainstorm and organize your thoughts (e.g. web, chart, Venn
diagram, list, etc.)
 

2. Writing: Using your prewriting activity, begin to write using the following guidelines/steps:
 

1. Determine who your audience will be. Either a real audience (teacher, parent), or a fictional one as in a RAFT
assignment.

2. Determine your format. This may depend on the type of assignment you are given, or you may create your own
format as in a RAFT assignment. (This can be a letter, menu, journal entry, paragraph, etc).

3. Make an outline of your main points and details. Once you’ve done this, the paper often seems to almost write itself.
Don’t skip this step!
 

4. Write a topic sentence/statement for your work. See ideas in writing handbook “Beginnings” or Topic Sentence
ideas.
Your topic statement should consist of two parts: the topic and the reason for writing.
 

5. Write your main points and details to support them. Be sure to give examples, explanations, evidence, events,
stories, etc.
 

6. Conclude with an interesting and appropriate conclusion. See conclusion ideas in writing handbook.
Tip: Try double-spacing your work so that you can go back and revise it with editing marks.

 

Monday or Day Three

Topic: Revising
Goal: To revise your weekly writing assignment
 

Assignment: To aid you in revising your work, complete the following directed revision activities:
Duration: 1-2 days
 

A. Add Adjectives

a. Underline all nouns in your work (lightly)

b. Look to see if you have used an adjective to describe each noun. If not, try to add an appropriate and interesting
adjective for each noun.
 

c. If you have used adjectives, look them up in a thesaurus (or Word Web) to see if you can make them more interesting. Record any interesting adjectives that you like/find in your personal or class thesaurus/word book. (If you
have not already started a personal/class thesaurus, do the following: In a handbook or piece of paper to be placed in a binder, write an adjective across the top of the page. As you find synonyms throughout the days, weeks, etc,
record them in list form under the word. Do this for as many adjectives as you come across. Then, when you are writing and you come across a bland adjective, look in your thesaurus for a livelier, more interesting one. The more
often you use your thesaurus , the easier it will become to use interesting words in your everyday writing, insha Allah.
 

B. Add adverbs

a. Lightly circle all verbs in your work.
b. Look at each verb and try to add an adverb to modify the verb and make it more interesting. Use your thesaurus.

C. Spice up your verbs

a. Look at the verbs you circled in B. Can you think of more interesting verbs? Use the writing handbook or your thesaurus to liven up your verbs.

D. Get a great start

a. Look over your beginning. Does it grab your reader’s attention? If it’s dull, try using ideas for beginnings in the
writing handbook. Tip: Try picking 1-3 ideas for beginnings and write a sentence for each one and see which you
like better. Also, try consulting with someone to see which of them they like the best.

E. Pay attention to (your) details

a. Look at your main points and then the details for each point. Do your details SUPPORT the point? If not, you may want to toss them and try again.

b. Add examples, anecdotes, events, explanations to get the point across (see writing handbook)
 

F. Go out with a Bang!
 

a. Come up with an interesting ending/conclusion that challenges, questions, or excites your reader, or clearly
sums up your writing. (See writing handbook for ideas)
 

G. After doing the revising activities, rewrite your assignment, incorporating the changes.
 

H. Give your writing a catchy and interesting title, if appropriate for the assignment.

 

Tuesday or Day Four
Topic: Revising (if not finished from yesterday) or Proofreading
Goal: Finish revising and proofread your paper.
 

Assignment:
1. Complete revisions
2. Proofread your work using the following guidelines.
 

a. Look for only one type of error at a time

i. Capitalization
ii. Punctuation
iii. Spelling
iv. Sense (Read each sentence aloud, slowly. Read what it says, not what it is supposed to say.) Did
it make sense?

Tip: Refer to writing handbook for spelling, capitalization and punctuation rules

3. Proofread a previous work, or a classmate’s previous work, or complete a proofreading activity such as Everyday Edits from www.educationworld.com  or other resource.

 

Wednesday or Day Five

Topic: Publishing
Goal: Strut your stuff!
 

Assignment: Prepare a final copy of your assignment.
 

Tips: Add clip art to make it interesting, as well as charts, tables, graphs, etc. Use an interesting format as an alternative to plain paragraphs (letter, journal, menu, resume, advertisement, oral presentation, etc)

 

Be CREATIVE! And have fun.
 

Thursday or Day Six
Topic: Publishing (if not finished) or Make up, or any of the FREE WRITING activities below, if you have finished your writing
assignment:
Goal: Complete your writing assignment
 

Assignment: Complete your writing assignment, and if done, free write.
 

Possible Free Writing Activities

• Write a story. (Make the theme/topic be about something you learned this week, or tie it to your weekly writing assignment or just
  write from off the top of your head. You can also use your wordbook to get ideas for a topic. Or try spin a Story. (Come
  up with a who, what, when, where, why) and weave it into a story.

 

• Write a diary entry about what you did today (or yesterday).
   

• Write about what you learned in a class this week
   

• Write a letter to a relative or friend.
   

• Write a summary of a book/story you read recently. (or write a prequel or sequel to a story or another ending)

 

• Write about an occupation.
   

• Write about an animal.
   

• Write about a game you like. Or turn a game you like into a story.
   

• Add to your wordbook
   

• Use any ideas of your own

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This page last updated:

Monday, December 31, 2007