It's All in the Details

Since my students do tons of writing in class, I needed to make sure they understood the word details. I like to use my cake analogy because it's something students can relate to. I ask the students to imagine their birthday cakes. I ask. . .

Do you want it to look like this?

Or do you want it to look like this?

 

Or this?

Of course they all want colorful cakes with decorations all over it. . .or DETAILS! So I have the kids decorate their cakes with details and use the word details to tell us about the details they added to their detailed cakes. Then we look at a rubric to determine how detailed our cakes are.

The students are able to add more details to score a 4 candle cake.











Next we apply our knowledge of details by identifying important details from the perfect book. . .

 As I read the story, we stop and discuss the important events and write them on our cakes.

 Then we add "decorations" to the cake which are actually the details the kids have written.

From there we move on to other activities to develop a deeper understanding of details and how WE can add details to our writing to make it better. Click on A Dollop of Details below to get a hold of these activities and more.