Memorial Day Micro Essays

We all know the feeling...We come in after a long holiday weekend and our students eyes are glazed over, some are lying with their heads down, and we are left wondering, "How am I supposed to wake up this class?"  Enter Whole Brain Teaching and the beauty of Oral Writing.  The only way I was going to get them to use their verbal skills today was by getting them to share about something they were interested in- what they did over the weekend!

I wrote this essay guideline on the board:

Memorial Day Micro Essay

1.  Topic Sentence :  
     Three things I did during Memorial Weekend were __________, _________ and ________.
2.  1st example with a simile
3.  Adder
4.  2nd example with a simile
5.  Adder
6.  3rd example with a simile
7.  Adder
8.  Concluder

Personal essays are a wonderful way to have students willingly participate and remain engaged while doing something educationally beneficial!

Here is a video of my students producing micro essays first thing this morning :)