New Year's Day Writing Activity - "Dynamite Resolutions for the New Year"

Teachers, this post offers you a few more days of relaxing, shopping, reading for pleasure, watching college bowl games, or indulging in whatever revives you best before you must unlock your classrooms after your much-deserved break.  This lesson, New Year's Day Writing Activity: Dynamite Resolutions for the New Year, will engage your middle and /or high school students as the first bell chimes while giving you an activity that meets comprehension, writing, thinking and speaking objectives.

As the New Year tick tocks its way into January, students’ brains need some prodding to shake off the cobwebs of long winter naps. This language arts activity sparks their comprehension, critical thinking and writing muscles as they consider the texts that they read and analyzed during the fall and early winter months. After they complete the handout and share their responses in a whole-class discussion that promises to be lively, their brains will be revved up for the next fiction or narrative nonfiction unit.

For this lesson, New Year's Day Writing Activity: Dynamite Resolutions for the New Year, students will choose five people from any of the reading they have completed so far this school year, and will create a New Year’s Resolution for each one. Each decision must be one that fits the character’s disposition, morals, values and temperament.

After the students create this pledge, they must explain

•  why the character made this decision,
•  why this is a logical choice for him/her, and they
•  must also include the title and author for each story that they use.

To score this activity, allot 1 point each for the character, the title and the author; 3 points for each Resolution, and 4 points for the Reason -10 points per each character response, and 50 points for the whole worksheet.

Example:

Character: Goldilocks; Goldilocks and The Three Bears; Robert Southly

Resolution: I vow never to break into anyone’s house again.

Reason: My parents grounded me for breaking and entering, eating the Bear family’s food, destroying their furniture and messing up their beds. For three weeks I had to eat cold porridge, sit in a wooden chair and sleep on a wooden pallet with no mattress. That was no fun.

This lesson promises to add more bricks to students’ academic homes while they prove the premise that Learning is Fun.  Resolve to download this $1.25 bargain from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/New-Years-Day-Writing-Activity-Dynamite-Resolutions-for-the-New-Year-179906.

Happy Teaching,

 New Year's graphic from https://openclipart.org/detail/211059/happy-new-year-2015-by-viscious-speed-211059