+ Word Choice Impact Essay

+ What’s important about Word Choice? As you read and listen to other people speak, you cultivate a rich vocabulary of PRECISE and COLORFUL words that let you say exactly what you want. This is the essence of good word choice! Every new word increases your power!

+ Tips for success… Verbs are the most important of all your writers’ tools!!!!! They push the sentence forward and give it momentum …flail, poke, dazzle, squash, pamper, swagger, vex, etc. (Learn to develop a critical eye towards the verbs in your work!!!! Ask yourself if the verbs are active, powerful, full of energy and pizzazz?

+ Next tip…Keep the vocabulary natural! Never write to impress or you’ll end up with sentences like this… “He cultivated his way into the kitchen.” or… “Our friendship was highly lucrative.” See what happened? In an attempt to use words that were bigger, these writers forgot to make sure they MAKE SENSE. A Thesaurus can be a good friend to a writer but only if used with thought!

+ Next tip… your writing works best with specific words, carefully chosen to create a vivid picture in the readers’ mind. Play around with the words until they sound good. Don’t say, “The dog was big and mean.” Say instead, “A hundred pounds of snarling yellow fur launched itself from the porch, straining at a rope thin as spaghetti.”

+ Next Tip…Brainstorm how else to say it Put “tired” words to rest…No more good, sad, big…these are 6 th grade words!!!!

+ Now, we are going to read “Should High School students work after school?” Remember, when you rate them, make sure to give reason for why you rated it. A score of 5 is mastery (great word choice that improvesa A score of 3 is developing (attempting but not quite there yet!!!) A score of 1 is beginning and needs some work on improving!!!!!

+ What did you score it? Why? They scored it1/2, beginning Huh? Looks like someone got too cozy with a thesaurus!!! Papers like this are wonderful teaching tools. Students get a kick out of recognizing and revising the incorrectly used words, and the activity serves as a great reminder for the importance of keeping language natural.

+ We are going to read, “In the Basement” What did you rate it and why? They scored it a 5, strong. Striking words and phrases leap out from around every corner in this piece, adding to the sense of impending dread and yes, even to the occasionally hard to follow story line. “Darkness swirled in the portal below.”

+ Last one…”Mr. Hal” What did you rate it and why? They rated it a 3, developing Every once in a while, it doesn’t hurt to throw a complex piece of writing at a well-sensed group of scorers to see just how closely they are paying attention. This paper clearly has problems with conventions and fluency, so the reader has to look closely to separate out word choice issues. What do you see? “HE world” and “he” are repeated quite frequently. For the most part, however, the paper reads like a draft in which no attention has been paid to refining the language, It’s okay, but not exciting!