Unit 5 The Bridge to Creative Writing

   They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Fortunately, IEW’s Unit 5 doesn’t require students to write quite that many! If you have been following the â€Å"One Structural Unit a Month† plan, December is Unit 5: Writing from Pictures. Students are given a set of pictures that they use as a source for a composition (usually three paragraphs). This unit is often a challenging one for teachers to wrap their minds around. Because it is the first unit where the content isn’t completely provided, it requires a bit more creativity and thought to come up with the content from the pictures. You may be tempted to skip it, but resist the temptation! Writing from Pictures is a very important step along the pathway from the basic skill of rewriting a paragraph to the advanced skills of inventive writing and essay writing. It serves as a bridge between providing the content to students and the blank page. In addition, Unit 5 is excellent for developing thinking skills as students practice asking themselves questions to come up with details for their compositions. When first teaching this unit, give students a set of three pictures that work together to show a sequence of events. Discuss what is going on in the pictures and how they might be connected. Model the process of asking yourself questions about the picture in order to generate the content for your key word outline. For example, Who or what is pictured? When and where did it happen? Why did it happen? What did they think, say, or do? Each picture will result in a paragraph of the composition. The first sentence tells the central fact of the picture, and the rest of the paragraph explains how it got that way. Finish the paragraph with a clincher, returning to the central fact of the picture. Thus, each paragraph works like a flashback. Using this model, students end up combining narrative and report writing into a creative report on pictures. Pictures can come from anywhere. Once students have some practice doing this unit, single pictures can be used, allowing students to imagine what happened before and after. During the holidays, it might be amusing to take pictures from an old family photo album and use those as a source for writing. Enjoy writing from pictures! Click here to find free pictures through Creative Commons. Or check out our Writing Source Packet, which includes over a dozen sets of pictures designed just for Unit 5 writing. (Click the picture at the top of this blog post for a free sample that you can use with your students.) To learn more about this unit, view the Unit 5 DVD or streaming video from  Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, and watch the recording of this week’s Unit 5 webinar with Andrew Pudewa.    Jill Pike  is a homeschooling mother of eight and an IEW ® Accomplished Instructor. Serving as moderator of the  IEWFamilies forum, she provides support to thousands of teachers and parents. She has authored many lesson plans offered by the Institute for Excellence in Writing, most recently adapting Anna Ingham's  Blended Sound-Sight Program of Learning  for home educators in the  Primary Arts of Language. After graduating five children, Jill and her husband, Greg, continue to home educate their youngest three in Indiana. Log in or register to post commentsJill Pikes blog Log in or register to post comments