I was so impressed with the effort and thoughtfulness my students put into this assignment, and I’m so glad that they have inspired so many teachers to use this strategy as well. When students show me their work and it’s just a few things written or drawn in pencil I say, “Oh that’s a good rough draft, I can’t wait to see how it turns out when you finish it!” I spend a lot of my own money and time acquiring plenty of art supplies for students to use because I really value good tools to help students produce work that looks high-quality and that they can be proud of. For One-Pagers, students need to go over pencil in pen or marker or crayon or whatever other tool they’d like to use.
![6th grade rough draft examples language arts 6th grade rough draft examples language arts](https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/Five-Paragraph-Argumentative-Expository-Essay-Rough-Draft-Template-2203274-1500875447/original-2203274-1.jpg)
A project in pencil is not complete, it’s just a rough draft.
![6th grade rough draft examples language arts 6th grade rough draft examples language arts](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-97Xei-VlYYE/XeqY6IKbazI/AAAAAAAAAVc/3yzk3lYmvvA8tWX_DDt5dmvLswf8p0fZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Writing%2BProcess.jpg)
My students know that I am not a fan of pencils (I always use pens!), and in my class, pencils are for practice. This also helps to emphasize mood and tone since students have to make decisions about color choices and cannot just leave blank space. I tell them to add a border if they don’t know where else to start. It forces students to think about the background of their scene, or fill in blank areas with items or symbols from the story. (“Fine, except for clouds and eyeballs,” I always end up saying). One requirement that instantly improves the quality of everyone’s project is banning white space. I haven’t used this strategy with poetry yet, but I have a feeling it would lead to some outstanding projects, and I’m definitely going to try it next year. This is great with a long text like the Anne Frank play, but it also helps students to think more deeply about short stories. They can comment upon these quotes, make connections between them or to a larger topic, or provide their interpretation of the text. Ideally the response will be connected to the quotes that the students chose to emphasize from the story. The “Personal Response” section is always my favorite to read. I gave them two days of class time to complete this assignment, but the students who did these examples took them home to complete and spent extra time and effort. These girls (yes, they were all girls), looked up what the actual cover of Anne’s diary looked like, and they studied pictures of her to make sure that their drawings were accurate. It isn’t necessary that all of your students have professional drawing skills in order to do One-Pagers, but it is nice if they put a little bit of effort into the details of their graphics. I also love that calligraphy/hand-lettering is kind of a thing again, and these students like to make all of their hand-written assignments look extra amazing. I love when an assignment offers choices to students, but also keeps them focused on a specific task.Ĭlearly, the graphics on these projects are stunning! We have an amazing art program at our school, and I also just happened to have a class full of some of the most artistically talented students I’ve ever met. Similarly, the excerpts that students chose to use from the story also demonstrated both their understanding of the main ideas and theme, and allowed them to choose the sections that they connected with the most.
![6th grade rough draft examples language arts 6th grade rough draft examples language arts](https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/Rough-Draft-Essay-Form-1517843807/original-347433-1.jpg)
![6th grade rough draft examples language arts 6th grade rough draft examples language arts](https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/Writers-Workshop-Rough-Draft-Template-1500873633/original-503953-1.jpg)
I love using Flocabulary’s video and resources on Tone & Mood to introduce this topic. Color choices would reflect students’ understanding of the tone of the story, and would allow them to express their interpretations of the story. But because Anne Frank’s story is so powerful and so profound, especially to readers who are her same age, I knew we needed a reflection piece.īefore we started working on these One-Pagers we talked about tone. We had engaged in so many discussions while reading the play, and my students had written so many shorter, focused writing pieces, that I didn’t want to assign another long essay at the end of this text. The examples here are from my 8th grade English class, using the Anne Frank play from the HMH Collections Curriculum. (I use LucidPress to create most of my digital flyers instructions, and the flat lay graphic is from Laine Sutherland Designs on TeachersPayTeachers).