Verbs in Revision

Georgia Heard’s Book The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques That Work is one of the best books on the teaching of writing that I own.  If it’s not in your bookshelf, then click here to preview it and/or buy it (It’s that good!).  To that end, I decided to do one last revision lesson, before my kids publish their memoirs on Tuesday, with my students tomorrow.  It’s all about strong verb usage, which Heard likens to being the engines of sentences.  Here’s the minilesson I wrote-out for use in my classroom tomorrow.  I’ll probably adapt it a little bit after I assess my students’ present understanding of verbs tomorrow morning at Morning Meeting (we’re going to play a verb game from Getting Grammar: 150 Ways to Teach an Old Subject by Topping and Hoffman).  It’s by no means a perfect minilesson.  I’ve taught this one so many times, in a variety of genres, that writing it down was a bit tough.  However, from time-to-time we get emails asking us to take a look at some of our minilessons, so here you go!