Spelling List Wordzzle

Boy-oneder had to write a story using his spelling words.  The assingment reminded me of Views From Raven's Nest weekly wordzzle challenge (which we have participated in exactly once).  Here it is.  The underlined words are his spelling words.

                                      MY TRIP TO THE SHOPPING MALL 

One peaceful night we looked in the pantry and realized we didn’t have any tuna for dinner. We all looked at each other, and then I got a idea. I happily said, “Let’s go to the grocery store.” We hopped in the car and drove off.  Usually we go to a grocery store 19 miles away, but there’s a new one 5 miles away. When we got there we met some homeless people and gave them some quarters. Other people were thoughtless and just passed them by. A beautiful store worker told us exactly where the tuna was. We were a little forceful while we were rummaging through the fish. We found the tuna and went to check it out when I realized my brother was missing. Dad stayed at the door in case he came back. We were clueless about where he was hiding.  We found him by the balloon man. He was lightly picking up a balloon that the balloon man dropped. We thought he was just being careless. We looked at Michael seriously and told him to come home with us. We easily bought the tuna. When we got home, Michael yelled, “Hey, the tuna is in the refrigerator!” We looked at each other, then we burst out laughing. For the next few weeks tuna was plentiful in our house.  That is the true story of how my brother became a balloon man’s assistant. 

Visions and Revisions

I am currently reading the classic Zinser book On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction.

Here the author talks about the book and the history behind it.

What is a Wordzzle?

A wordzzle is a web challenge I recently discovered at Views from Raven's Nest. You are given between 8 and 10 words or phrases each week and asked to create a small but coherent paragraph using every one of them. There are a few guidelines in this post.

It struck me that this was just the kind of thing I was looking for to get J more interested in writing. So I presented him with the challenge and the following ten words: partition, imagination, salvation, mirror image, green power, highway, roasting marshmallows, serial killer, autograph and cartography. He wrote for 20 minutes and we edited together. Here is the result.

The Map Maker's Hero

There once was a very fine man who was skilled in cartography. He was riding down the highway when a magical serial killer approached. The killer made the cartographer's (whose name was Henry F. Salvation) eyes become blurry and writing hard to read. Henry was becoming poor because he couldn't do his work any more. One day, his hero, Map Maker, came. Henry asked for an autograph. Map maker said, "Use your imagination to defeat the killer." When Henry set out to find the killer, he looked to the side and saw mirror images. He found the killer roasting marshmallows. Henry used his green power to create a partition between them. He also made green ropes to to tie him up and he took him to jail. Oh yes, he took away the killer's powers. Then he used his green power to make himself see to far lands and his writing neater.

I love that he was excited to write and that I got to teach him a little about the process. For each mistake we corrected, we talked about why the correction was necessary. It was a quick, fun, and painless writing lesson which we will be able to complete each week.

I'm already a little tired of the super-hero genre, but I have to remember that he is nine and he is writing. For that I am glad.