Grab A Quote! Inspiration for writers

If your students are anything like mine, they often get in a habit of writing in a certain style, where their writing almost becomes formulaic.  Or perhaps you have students that may have some great ideas for the body of their essay, but the introduction or conclusion are lacking a certain "je ne sais quoi".  Enter stage left:  'Grab a quote' lesson!

This lesson stemmed from a few different resources and clashing of ideas that constantly pop around in my brain.  We are always looking for ways to help our students write engaging, interesting essays that readers simply don't want to put down.  We also want to give our students a plethora of strategies and crafts to use so that they can put into place what works for their topic, their essay, and their style as an author.  As is often said, "to each his own". (Get what I did there?? Hehe.)

So, as can be seen in this super quick and easy flow chart I created via lucidchart, there were multiple factors involved in my brainstorming session.  I'll give the detailed version of the steps taken that I believe made this lesson successful, as well as ways that I will adjust in the future.
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Because I'm a "boxes and bullets" kind of gal, that's how I'll take you through the steps of this lesson.

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Quote of the week posted in our daily morning message...

Set Students Up for Success

• Begin implementing "quote of the week" with your students.  ​
• I usually think about what my students and I have been studying or what we will be studying in the future to help determine the quotes I choose.  I also might think about quotes that support social and emotional development.  OR you can snatch quotes from Comprehension Connections (McGregor, 2007).
• I often give a brief background history of the person from which the quote is derived, but sometimes I find that the best quotes are written by an "anonymous" source.  We will ALWAYS discuss the meaning behind the quote.
• Hearing the quote often allows students to ponder the quote, commit it to memory, and apply it in the future.  Therefore, I may use our quote as a transition between activities.  For example, I might say, "When you hear the quote of the week, leave the rug to gather your materials."  Or, "When you hear the quote of the week, safely line up at the door."  
• Every week when we get a new quote, we post the previous week's quote on a designated door or wall space in the classroom and refer back to them continuously.  A few students have added quotes on sticky notes that they have found in the books they've read!  How cool is it that they are watching out for powerful quotes from authors!

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Mini Lesson(s) Time!

1. Crunchtime (Bernabei, Candler, and Hover, 2009) is a great resource for planning writing workshop lessons!   Within this book, a fantastic lesson on truisms is introduced.  I used truisms as a segue into the "Grab a Quote" lesson. 
2. Once they were familiar with truisms and could generate truisms for many different pictures, scenarios, and prompts, we thought about how quotes might be similar to or different than truisms. 
3. The students generated definitions for 'quotes' and 'truisms'.  THEY came to the conclusion that, while most quotes could be considered truisms, not all truisms are quotes.  THEY decided that quotes are well-known sayings from (generally famous) specific individuals and truisms could be written by anyone, at anytime, and by no known author.  
4. After generating these definitions, I introduced the use of quotes in writing by simply stating, "You have stated that truisms and quotes are very similar.  Therefore, if truisms can hold such powerful meaning in our writing, could quotes do the same?"  Students obviously decided that, yes, quotes could engage readers and maintain their attention throughout our pieces.  
5. At this time, we went out to search the classroom and the biographies we'd been reading to see where we noticed quotes.  This idea came directly from Jeff Anderson in his book 10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know. (BTW, if you don't have it already, GET IT!!  So worth the purchase!)  Students immediately shared that we could use the quotes we've been collecting over the weeks (duh!).  
6. Finally, I shared pictures and examples of flyers with perforated or stripped edges designated for valuable information.  We each created a "Grab a Quote" flyer and added quotes to each strip.  The requirements were: neat handwriting, correct spelling, quotation marks, and credit to the quotation-er.
7. Students posted their flyer in any appropriately accessible location along the classroom walls.  During our writing workshop time, students were encouraged to try using a quote within their writing.  If they were having a hard time determining just the right quote, they had the option of perusing our flyers to grab the perfect one!

This has been, by far, one of the most successful lessons I have implemented!  It was relevant, exciting, active, and inspiring all at once.  Students are continuously approaching me with new quotes they have noticed both in and outside the classroom.  ​