Writing Activities
Paint Chip Essay Writing
I had been experiencing trouble with teaching essay writing for some reason this year. I had seen a video from “TeachingChannel” about using paint chips from the hardware store to teach suffixes, prefixes and root words. This got me to thinking about other uses for this free, colorful resource. I started brainstorming about ways to better illustrate creating and writing proper essays (i.e. persuasive, informative, compare/contrast). I found paint chip sheets with 4 coordinating colors per sheet. This was perfect for the 4 paragraph essay. On the first strip, I wrote an introductory sentence about a pre-selected topic interesting to my students. In the 2nd and 3rd strips I wrote an introductory sentence/phrase that ties in with the pre-selected topic. For the final and conclusive paragraph, I used a concluding transition sentence/phrase. The students choose a subject card and use the provided sentences/phrases for each of the 4 paragraphs to help them create a story. See the attached picture for an example.
http://www.oconee.k12.sc.us/webpages/ahinson/index.cfm?subpage=47873
Paint Chip Essay Instruction,
