Formal and Creative Writing

Formal writing can be in the form of an essay, summary, KWL writing, a book review, a professional correspondence, or a resume. A summary can be broken down into the GRASP procedure. G stands for guiding, R is for reading, A is for and, S is for summarizing, and P is for procedure. Summarizing is broken into four parts. The first is preparing to read. The second is reading to remember. The third is grouping to remember information and the fourth step is to write the summary. KWL+ stands for what does the reader know, what does the reader want to learn, what did they learn, making a map, and summarizing their findings. A variation of this is 5W+H, which is who, what, when, where, why, and personal value. Inquiry charts allow students to engage in forming questions about a topic, organize what you know, and allow the student to develop new questions. Students then have to write a summary for each question and then put it all together into a paper.

Creative writing can be in the form of poetry. The acronym RAFT is helpful in creative writing. R is role, A is audience, F is format, and T is topic. It is often beneficial to start with the topic and work backwards. Cinquains and Diamantes are forms of poetry. Cinquains and Diamantes use nouns, adjectives, gerunds,and phrases. Cinquains end with synonyms and Diamantes end with an antonym. A Cinquain has five lines and a Diamante has seven lines. Sense poems are another type of poem under creative writing. Sense poems require the student to think of their favorite place and write a description using their senses. Students use a sense at the beginning of the line and end the line with how they feel.

I think that as a PE teacher I favor creative writing more than formal. I do not think I have the time in my classroom to teach fitness and help students write a formal paper. I will encourage students to write about topics such as nutrition, fitness, health, and physical activity in other classes if they have the opportunity. I really like sense poems. I think it is a great way to figure out what to teach as a teacher. My sense poem was about being outside. If a student gave me that kind-of poem, then I may plan more activities outside for those students who enjoy being outside. A lot of people in class wrote about certain sports, so as a PE teacher I can develop activities that I know my students will enjoy.