BJU Press Blog

Jenna

Telling the Easter Story with a Poem (Printable)

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Your children are being surrounded by the Easter story right now. They study it in Sunday school and family devotions, and they hear it in sermons and cantatas. They even see echoes of the Easter story in the seasons as winter loses its grip and spring begins to bloom, and everywhere the plants are coming alive.

You can find out how much of the Easter story your children are understanding with a fun Easter shape poem. Download this printable shape poem, and have your children fill in the blanks by telling the story of Easter one word at a time. It might turn out something like this.

Jesus
Sin
Lamb
Cross
Spear, blood, tomb, stone
Guards, herbs, angels, clothes
Life
Pardon
Gift
Redeemer
Savior
Christ

In this sample poem, the first section focuses on Christ being sent, the second on His sacrifice, and then the last on our redemption in Him. As long as your child tells the story based on the truths of the gospel, the words he uses to tell the story are up to him.

To ensure that they’re considering where they should put each word, have your children follow a death, burial, and resurrection pattern. They should use the first four lines to talk about the death of Christ. Then the next two should focus on His burial, and finally the last six should focus on His resurrection.

Since your children will be telling the gospel story one word at a time, they should focus on using only a few parts of speech. The sample uses only nouns, but your children could switch between using nouns in one section, verbs in the next, and then nouns again in the last. Remind them that the length of the words they choose will change the shape of the poem they produce. If they choose shorter, simpler words, it will ensure that their poem looks more like a cross.

Download the shape poem printable and retell the Easter story with your children!

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Teaching Elementary Poetry Writing (Printable)

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Have you ever read a poem and felt like what you were reading was a Jackson Pollock splatter painting in words? All that most of us can remember about studying Emily Dickinson’s poetry in high school is reading a bunch of words that are somehow supposed to make sense together but don’t—or perhaps the teacher’s explanation of how the poet’s choice of a certain color expresses her sorrow over a particular event in her life that seems completely unrelated to the poem.

If you’re about to start teaching your child to write poetry, you may be looking back at your past experiences with poetry and asking yourself two questions: why and how?

Why should I teach elementary poetry writing?

Writing poetry teaches your child to use creative description.

Forget splatter paintings and layered meanings. In its simplest form, poetry is about description. It’s using words to express a feeling or an idea in such a way that readers can’t help but say, “Yes, that!” whether or not they’ve experienced that feeling or idea before.

This kind of description is by nature concise and precise. It’s concise because using fewer words eliminates distractions, and it’s precise because in order to create the clearest pictures, words must rely on their exact meanings.

How should I teach elementary poetry writing?

There are hundreds of poetry forms to choose from, in addition to free verse, but one of my favorite forms and one of the easiest to start with is the diamante. Using it encourages your child to start mastering the conciseness and precision necessary in poetry. You can find examples of the diamante in chapter 6 of English 5 Student Worktext.

The diamante is a shape poem that highlights similarities and contrasts. Though it is seven lines long, it only has sixteen words—six nouns, six verbs, and four adjectives. The first line gives a noun that contrasts with the noun in the last line. The second line gives two adjectives that describe the first noun. Line three gives three verbs (ending in –ing) that show the action of the first noun. Line four gives four nouns, two of which rename the first noun, and two of which rename the last noun. Lines five and six mirror lines two and three, except they describe the last noun, not the first. So it comes out looking something like this:

Fire
angry, orange
glowing, snapping, blistering
tongues, ashes, flurries, icicles
glistening, cracking, aching
sad, blue
ice.

Have your child create her own diamante poem that hopefully looks more like a diamond by using this printable template.

Find more diamante poems in the English 5 Student Worktext.

How to Create Your Own Grading Rubric for High School (Printable)

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Grading Rubric

Grading a high school writing project can be more than a little confusing. Outside of simple grammar problems, there are a lot of different things to look for in an essay. A grading rubric is an invaluable assessment tool that gives you objective standards to assess your child’s writing. Teacher’s editions for BJU Press writing and grammar textbooks do provide general rubrics for all high school writing projects, but you may have other more specific goals for your student’s writing, such as

  • strong verb usage,
  • greater sentence variety,
  • natural sentence flow, and
  • avoiding passive voice.

Your child might benefit from a rubric specifically designed for him that focuses on what he struggles with in his writing. Being able to create your own grading rubric gives you control over what is emphasized in each assignment.

For example, your ninth-grade student has difficulty with sentence variety even though he has a good vocabulary. You’d like him to use his personal experience essay in Writing & Grammar 9 to practice before he writes his research essay, but the suggested rubric is designed to evenly assess a variety of different concepts, including sentence variety. You would like to change the rubric so that sentence variety is worth more points. Though you could switch out a few categories, you’d prefer to use this assignment to emphasize only a few ideas.

Printable Rubric

How do you create your own rubric so that you can focus specifically on the few ideas your child struggles with?

Creating a Grading Rubric

Rubrics follow one simple rule: the more general the rubric, the more subjective the grading will be. But the opposite is also true: the more specific and detailed your rubric, the more objective and straightforward the grading will be.

While it may seem easier (and faster) to make a grading rubric with three categories worth seven points each for a twenty-one point assignment, you might get stuck if you try to grade with that rubric alone.

You can get a little bit further by separating the number of points and assigning them to a rating. An excellent paper might get seven points, while an average paper might get four or five.

Download these grading rubric templates for ideas on how you might make your rubric more specific and detailed.

But how can you decide what makes an excellent paper excellent? Adding descriptions to the values of each category that separate good from excellent turns subjective grading into objective grading. Additionally, the descriptions will give you something to point to if your child questions his grade, and they give your child something to aim for as he’s writing. If he keeps in mind what you’ve described as excellent as he’s completing the project, he’s more likely to achieve it.

So for your ninth-grade student, you could lay out your rubric like this:

Alternate Rubric sample

This sample rubric is a customized version of the same rubrics you’ll find in all Writing & Grammar courses. See more ninth-grade writing assignments and their rubrics in the Writing & Grammar 9 Teacher’s Edition.

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An Activity for Making History Memorable (Printable)

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You never know when a fun little activity might become one of your child’s favorite memories. And what mother wouldn’t be pleased if one of her child’s favorite memories turns out to be about learning something new?

Recently I sat down with Michelle Jarrell, one of our Distance Learning teachers, to talk about the file folder games that she developed for her Heritage Studies 2 class. As we were talking, I couldn’t help but remember something I did when I was a kid. One day I got into the filing cabinet where my mom kept all the homeschool supplies and pulled out the laminated file folders she used to teach numbers, colors, and shapes. There were labels where the shapes and numbers went, and each piece had Velcro on the back. Now I laugh about the fact that at the time I was more fascinated by hearing the ripping sound than by putting the shapes where they belonged.

Mrs. Jarrell’s file folder games give a visual and hands-on element to heritage studies, which can be a not-so-visual and hands-on subject. A bit like lapbooks, file folder games focus on specific lessons rather than on broad overviews. And, they’re a lot of fun to make and to play.

The first few chapters of Heritage Studies 2 focus on the creation of the universe, basic geography, citizenship, and leadership. Chapter 5 onward covers the journey of the Pilgrims to the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence. In her class, Mrs. Jarrell gives her students the option to either complete an Activity Manual page that contains four to six dates from the chapter or add four to six dates to the master timeline that she designed. Here’s how you and your child can put together your own master timeline from AD 1000 to 1800.

Master Timeline Activity

Things you will need

  • Three file folders
  • Hook-and-loop fasteners (like Velcro®) or adhesive putty (like Sticky Tack)
  • Tape
  • Glue
  • Master timeline activity (printable)

Directions for timeline

  1. Print out the master timeline activity.
  2. Open all three file folders and line them up, side by side.
  3. Tape the folders together to make a single sheet approximately three feet by one foot.
  4. Cut out the timeline strips and glue them onto the folders, starting with 1000 at the top.
  5. Cut out the date and event tiles.
  6. As a review or as your child encounters new events in the history textbook, have him stick each tile where it belongs on the vertical timeline using tape, adhesive putty, or a hook-and-loop fastener.

Take a look at some of the other fun file folder games your child will find in Heritage Studies 2!

3 Benefits of Writing Thank-You Notes

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After every special occasion involving gifts, there’s the inevitable round of thank-you cards. And while you do want to show gratefulness, they probably aren’t something you look forward to writing. After all, who has the time?

But, for your children, writing thank-you notes has a lot of value. They give your children a chance to. . .

(Image use) WP 12/2016

1. Practice Composition Skills

Thank-you cards give your children an opportunity to apply composition skills outside of their studies. If they follow the traditional “thank-you-for-your-gift-I-will-use-it-for . . .” format of thank-you notes, they’ll need to consider what the item is, how it’s typically used and for what, and who they’re writing to. All these considerations involve important writing skills. For instance, they might change their tone if they’re addressing a jovial uncle as opposed to an affectionate grandma.

2. Practice Writing and Grammar Skills

Thank-you notes also give your children an opportunity to practice handwriting and grammar skills. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a thank-you card on college-ruled card stock. Writing cards encourages them to practice writing in a straight line, rather than letting their writing curve up or down. And since they won’t want to ruin the card by making too many mistakes, they’ll need to recall what they’ve learned about grammar and spelling to get it right the first time.

3. Practice Gratitude

But most importantly, thank-you notes are an opportunity to teach your children how to have a spirit of gratitude for the things they’ve been given. It’s a time to pause and appreciate the value of not only the gift but also the relationship with the giver. Even if they may not fully appreciate the gift itself, they can appreciate how much the giver means to them. After all, we as believers may never be able to fully comprehend the sacrifice Christ made for us, but we can love Christ because of the love He has shown us.

So encourage your children to take the time and write handwritten thank-you notes this year! At the very least, you can count them as extra credit later.