Teaching creative writing with special kids “My favorite things” Favorite things to write about with special kids ©Virginia Rivera

Why I am a special ed teacher

Section 504 Rehabilitation Act of 1973 extends civil rights to people with disabilities. This regulation states in part, that “no otherwise qualified handicapped individual shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

Expectation W.11.2 Determines the purpose of writing; analyzes and constructs organizational patterns to connect ideas; writes narrative, expository, and persuasive essays. – Objective: Writes about a given issue in which he/she formulates a hypothesis and uses well- structured and uses logical narrative to support or reject it.

Using favorite things Using a favorite thing is easy for the students Everybody has a favorite something The theme can be broken by categories and in stead of saying favorite things you can change it to: things you love, like, prefer…

Categories You add as many categories as you would like Or use it as a complete other theme – Example The places I prefer The food that I like The movies I love

Building a character Once the student has chosen the favorite thing he/she can build a character out of anything They can relate to the character they are building because they are using something they love It gives them a sense of ownership and pertinence of what they are doing

My favorite things song

Pictionary List of favorite things Place= country, building, room Things= cell phone, toy, device Food= pizza, candy, meat, side dish Song, poem or quotation Sport, team, player Movie, artist Pet= dog, cat, parrot, snake

First written activity In this handout you are going to write your favorite thing in each category. For each thing you are going to mention 5 descriptive words.

Second written activity Choose a favorite thing and turn it into a character Example If you chose a cell phone, give it a face, a body and personality (happy, sad, grouchy) Paste it in the cover page

Now you will build a book With the descriptive words you wrote about your favorite things you are going to write – First page Who is the character? – Second page What does he/she/it likes to do? – Third page Where does he/she/it live?

Fourth page Time and customs Fifth page Give an ending And for the last page be creative. Draw, write -the end- in a creative way or what ever you would like.

Just a little something… for the kids

IT IS NOT ONLY ABOUT THEM LEARNING TO BE PART OF A COMMUNITY, BUT ABOUT US LEARNING THAT THEY ARE PART OF OUR COMUNITY… VIRGINIA

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