Voice & Point of View

This slam dunk classroom activity was shared by Tiffany, a first year teacher with a vision for writing with the traits...  

This last year was my first year of teaching and therefore the first year I taught the 6 Traits of Writing (and really learned them myself for that matter!) Here is an activity that I did in my classroom:

 

I gave each student in the room a photograph with a prompt on the back, they didn't know it at the time but someone else in the room had the same photograph with a very different prompt on back.

For example, two students would have a picture of an ice cream sundae. One prompt would say, "Write about this sundae as if you haven't eaten anything in a week", oppositely the other prompt would say, "Write about this sundae as if you are on a very strict diet." 

Two students would have a picture of a person about to jump out of an airplane with the ground visible far below - One prompt would say, "Write as if you are this person and you love thrill seeking and adventures," the other, "Write as if you are this person and you are deathly afraid of heights." I told the students to answer the prompt based on the photo and that they would eventually share their writing with a peer.

After everyone was done writing I explained that there was another person who had the same photo and the two partners met and shared their writings - obviously very different!

We then talked about how different writers have different voices based on their experiences, background, what they are writing, etc. To be honest, I'm not sure if this was a proper activity to convey the topic of voice or not, but the students seemed to understand the concept - they liked the activity and sharing the very different writings that could come from the same picture. Any thoughts or modifications? I'm open for further ideas too! :0)

Tiffany @ Mosinee