Just the Facts, Ma'am?

Imagine yourself curled up in your favorite blanket, a warm fire crackling beside you, a cup of coffee in one hand and a long detailed police report in the other - wait - that's not right!  We don't want to curl up and get cozy with a police report.  We want to be whisked away to a foreign land, doubled over laughing at your I-can-so-relate-to-that-blunder, or reaching for a tissue to wipe away the evidence of words that have tugged at our heart.  This can't happen with "just the facts."  We must elaborate!  We want all the JUICY details!

I can't think of anything better than a warm chocolate chip cookie to get the creative juices flowing.  I mean really, can you ever say too much about chocolate?   

Didn't think so. 

It seems like pulling teeth to get some kids to add details to their writing, but pop a roll of cookie dough in the oven and trust me, they'll talk.    

With the smell of chocolaty goodness wafting through the air I guide my kiddos in using their five senses to add juicy words and elaborative details to writing.  Together, we fill out the chart below as we partake of our delectable goodie.  

I model how to turn the juicy words we come up with into elaborative details for our descriptive writing.  I L.O.V.E. the Desktop Sentence Starters from Empowering Writers.  We use these to keep our papers from just becoming a "grocery list".  This is important because if I buy the cookie dough, figure out how to get down to the kitchen to bake the cookies, and have to deal with sugared up kids that ate the cookies, I.better.have.good.sentences. It looked round, it felt soft, it smelt good will not cut it. You know what I'm sayin'.  Together we discuss and draft a piece of writing that will have you running for a glass of milk.