Are you as tired of reading "What I did this summer" essays as the students are of writing them? Spice them up with hyperbole. $

How to Use This Book

According to Dictionary.com, hyperbole is an obvious and intentional exaggeration. Students can have fun with this in their writing, taking the usual "What I Did for Vacation" assignment and adding a twist.

Have students list on one side of page 3 what they did this summer. For students who say they did nothing, ask them what kind of nothing they did. Sometimes prompting them with video games, movies, and television shows gets them started.

Using the worksheet on page 4, have students experiment with creating similes that have hyperbole.

Show the story on pages 6-7 as a mentor text. Have students notice where I included hyperbole in each scene of the story.

Now have them write a rough draft based on their own experience with plenty of exaggeration.

I encourage my students to read this draft aloud to themselves, to a partner or even to the class. Reading aloud lets the student hear what needs to be revised.

I also have students peer edit. I have them choose other students to read each other's work and fix spelling, grammar, capital letters, etc.

Next they are ready to write a final draft to hand in.

I grade this according to the rubric on page 5. If my students are new to reading rubrics, I use the sections as my mini lessons to give students directions on a project. I find when I do this, my students generally perform to my expectations and it doesn't take me long to grade.

Visit my shop, Mary Bauer, at Teacher's Notebook.
Or view this product, Using Hyperbole: The Making of a Tall Tale.