Monitoring Descriptive Writing

I awoke to the sound of beeping, my eyes needed to adjust to the light of the pristine white walls. I heard shuffling of clothing to my left, I slowly turned my head to see a man with

Being unexpectedly roused from a restless sleep, Casey felt the mattress being pressed down as if someone had sat on the bed next to her. Holding her breath, she listened. There was the soft rumble of thunder far off in the distance, the whirring of the overhead ceiling fan, and the faintest sound of someone’s soft, rhythmic breathing.

Around me were machines beeping rhythmically and the sound of a faint snore. Sylvia was there, sleeping in a chair next to me. I lied there on the hospital bed, enjoying my surroundings a while before she woke up. When she did wake she immediately hugged me, crying, and called the doctor in.

About three hours later I here the turning of a key, as I was putting my last book on the shelf and telling myself to be

My life is mundane, wake up, go to work, go to sleep, repeat. Therefore, this Tuesday morning is no different from any other. Semi-asleep at four in the morning I heard birds chirping outside my window. I tossed to the side trying to block noise when I realized something peculiar. Where was Shannon? My wife Shannon, she was there the night before, she was there when I fell asleep. Despite her lack of presence and my fatigue, I found myself falling back into slumber. I took no thought of her absence, assuming she had gone to work early as she sometimes does.

I woke to shouting and banging on my door. I grabbed my pocket watch from the side of my bed; it read 4 o’clock. Who would be at my door this early in the morning? I thought. My body was dragged from the bed as I trudged along to my front door.

I woke up at 3:30 to Addison screaming. "Your turn," I said pushing Carson. "I got her last time," he whined. "Well I gave birth to her so you go," I sassed. "Ugg," he groaned as he got up. He left and returned a few minutes later with Addie in his arms. "Addie girl, why don't you sleep?" I asked taking her from Carson. She just snuggled into me. "She had a full diaper," Carson explained. "Of course, she's asleep," I said looking down at Addison asleep in my arms,"I'm going to go rock her." "Babe why? You need your sleep," Carson asked. "I know. I just want some baby snuggles," I said getting up.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, I toss and turn, trying to sleep more, tick, tick, tick. I give up, I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and walk into the room next door, gently shaking her awake. I look at the clock next to her bed, 1:07 it reads.

Then, I start to hear slight creak at the door. I get up very quickly and try to hear what it was. I shifted my body around in my bed. Since I don’t have my bionic eyes, I am blind again. Who could it be?

A dark, blackish, minute silhouette, at first glance seemingly odorless of strange appearance stood on the corner. It was located on the corner of an empty gray, worn down side walk, next to a four way intersection, with fallen stop signs, whose roads where so worn down it appeared as if it was an antique road of dirt that had been covered in pebbles, as the only concrete that was left were a few shreds here and there, around 2000 feet away, parallel from where I was positioned, on a side walk next to a dirt road in the middle of the night, at 12 am on a nice late September autumn day, with light, leaf scented breeze, where I was basking in the young moon. The intersection was said to be so quiet and so unoccupied, men were rumored to sleep

At the summit of a small hill the traveller shrugs off his backpack, leaning the bulky object against a moss-draped rock to prevent his life spilling out of the barely zipped pockets and tumbling down the grassy hillside. Facing the lowering sun, he raises his hands above his head, fingers interlaced, and stretches his aching shoulders. Conscious of the many years that have gathered in his clicking joints, the same way the dust of so many beaten tracks is embedded in his faded canvas hat. It was blue once, a deep inky blue like the twilight sky just as the first stars are appearing, but the years of sun and rain and snow have drained its colour to a dirty smog-grey.

Suddenly something foreign to your tranquil state interrupts the silence in your bedroom. That is the sound that rips you from pleasant sleep that you know you didn’t get enough of for the day. But that doesn’t matter in the long run, since you know that no one who’s going to be there did either. You angrily and hurriedly rush out of bed to stop that irritating sound that pulls you out of bed everyday. There is

As my students get the opportunity of analysing and reviewing my writing in the shared writing process, they learn to critique their own work by reflecting and evaluating their own writing. I implement the research supported six traits of writing in my classroom to teach and model out quality writing (Spandel, 2005, p. ix). For example, the ideas for writing, sentence organisation, word choice, conventions, sentence fluency and voice (Spandel, 2005, p. ix). Additionally, I provide scaffolded instruction, prompts and suggestions to encourage them to think critically and self-reflect and improve their writing.

It has come to my understanding that you have mixed feelings about allowing interactive writing in the classroom. I’m going to pose a few questions for you to think about. What single teaching technique can be used to aid in the development of phonological skills and help children attribute meaning to print? How can teachers create a lesson that permits whole group instruction and individual attention at the same time? How can the teacher practice skills without losing the engagement of the class? How can learning to read and write be enjoyable for students? The answer to these questions is interactive writing.

I awoke to the sound of the baby monitor crackling as a voice soothed my firstborn child. As I moved to change my position, my arm brushed over my wife. I got out of bed and rushed to the baby’s room, all the while thinking I should have never taken those greens. I didn’t believe she’d do it, after all it was only a handful of greens. I thought it was just an empty threat.