“A Rescue”
(Narrative, Grade 4)
Effective Word Choice:

panting—strong verb, provides sensory description of how Robert was breathing

“I don’t think so buddy in a million years”—realistic/authentic word choice that leads
to powerful voice, something that a person would actually say in the situation

“took off like a rocket from the moon”—use of a simile creates a more vivid image and
contributes to powerful voice

enormous (inormous)—great description word (adjective) for the pitch of the shriek
Robert let out when his hair was grabbed

yanked—strong verb that paints a picture of how forceful the author pulled Robert’s
hair

“clean out of his head”—realistic/authentic word choice that paints a clear picture of
what Robert’s head looked like after his hair was yanked out
Ineffective Word Choice:

went—weak verb that lacks description and fails to create the initial suspense required
for this story

old—weak description for painting a clear picture in the reader’s mind of what the
haunted house actually looked like, readers already know that haunted houses are old

“a for real haunted house”—authors must pretend that their readers do not have prior
knowledge of the subject they are describing, therefore readers need specific details
about what a haunted house actually is and more importantly what it looks like

something—blocks meaning and voice because “something” doesn’t make readers see
or feel anything, provides no description (adjective modifiers) about what the
“something” actually looks like

nice—lacks description, an overly used “tired word”, does not effectively describe
feelings created by the fog

thing—blocks meaning and voice because they don’t make readers see or feel anything,
no description of what the “thing” looks or sounds like

ran—weak verb that fails to add tension or mystery to the piece

said—an overly used “tired word”, verb does not paint any type of picture in the
reader’s mind about what the speaker actually sounds like when he or she speaks

and, but, then—overly used connectives that weaken fluency and make the writer’s ideas
hard to follow
Suggestions for Student Author:

Add more descriptive words (both verbs and adjectives) that actually describe what the
haunted house looks and possibly sounds like. Pretend your readers have no idea what
you are talking about when you say “haunted house”. It is your job to paint a clear
picture in their minds so they can feel as if they were actually there with you,
experiencing your reactions and seeing the house clearly in their minds.

Provide a character sketch of Robert so readers have a sense of what type of person he is.
This can be accomplished by providing readers with details about Robert’s humorous
personality, for example give your readers an example of the actual jokes Robert was
telling about the haunted house. Depending on what the jokes were, these could actually
help provide more description of the haunted house and your experience.

Use sensory details to describe the monster (what did it look like, sound like, smell like,
feel like) so again your readers are able to clearly see the monster in their minds.

Use actual dialogue between the characters in your story. Eliminate overly used, tired
verbs like “said” and use more descriptive dialogue tags that allow the reader to actually
hear how the speaker sounds when he or she speaks. For example, instead of writing
“Robert said Shhhh it’s only a stray cat”, you could instead write “Robert quietly
whispered, ‘Shhhh it’s only a stray cat’”.

Find replacements for non-specific words like “thing” and “something”. These words
block meaning and voice because your readers do not see or hear anything as a result of
reading them. Instead find specific words that will allow the reader to clearly visualize
what the ghost or monster actually looks like.

Revise adjectives like “nice” by using the thesaurus to discover adjectives that are more
descriptive and paint a clearer picture in your reader’s mind.

Revise verbs like “went” and “ran” by finding stronger verbs in the thesaurus that give
more energy to your writing and make the writing more exciting and in the case of this
particular piece, suspenseful, for your readers.

Eliminate the overuse of connectives such as “and”, “but” and “then”. You use these
same words continuously throughout your piece, often causing run-on sentences that can
be shorten for a more effective voice. Using these connectives repeatedly, especially at
the conclusion of your piece not only weakens fluency, it also makes your ideas harder to
follow for your readers.
Teacher: Tell me what you have been working on during writer’s workshop?
Student: I am writing a story about the time when my friend Robert and I visited this haunted
house.
Teacher: Sounds exciting and maybe a little scary even! So in looking at your piece, what is a
trait or section even that you think might need some revision work?
Student: Well I would like to add more details that do a better job describing the house and my
experience so I guess I need to work on revising some of my word choice.
Teacher: That sounds like a great place to begin. Now I would like you to read your piece to me
so that together we can brainstorm some ways we can improve your descriptions and word
choice.
Student reads story aloud while teacher listens.
Teacher: It sounds like that was quite a frightening experience! You already have some
excellent statements that really contribute to your writer’s voice. I can tell that you are really
interested in writing about this topic. I like when use statements like “I don’t think so buddy in a
million years” or “clean out of his head”. These statements are realistic, I can imagine that you
really might have said or thought them. They also help to paint a picture in my mind of how you
are feeling during the story. I definitely agree though that working on your word choice will
only lead to better descriptions and detail for your story. First let’s talk about what your
emotions were throughout this event? Tell me how you felt.
Student: I was really scared, especially when I saw the monster holding onto Robert.
Teacher: Ok, I can imagine that was really scary. What about your feelings when you first saw
the haunted house from the outside?
Student: I didn’t want to go in at all. It was old and dark with cobwebs all over it. Some of the
windows were broken out and it looked like no one had lived there for years and years.
Teacher: Great, those are the types of descriptions we are looking for. You want your readers to
really be able to visualize everything about that haunted house from both the inside and outside.
So doesn’t it make sense to start your story by describing in detail what the house looked like
and maybe even sounded like? Pretend your readers have no idea what you are talking about
when you say “haunted house”. It is your job to paint a clear picture in their minds so they can
feel as if they were actually there with you, experiencing your reactions and seeing the house
clearly in their minds. You also want your readers to feel the suspense in your writing as you
decide whether or not to go into the haunted house. So what are some strong verbs or adjectives
that you might be able to use in the beginning to add more description to the haunted house?
Student: Maybe instead of using the adjective old, I could add ancient and abandoned to let my
readers know that no one had lived there for a long time. I could also describe how dark and
gloomy it was, how the grass was grown up all around it, windows broken and cobwebs covered
everything including the door handle. I could even talk about the flapping sound I heard from
the wind picking up the loose shingles on the roof.
Teacher: Wow! That is definitely an excellent description of the house. I can really visualize
what it looked and sounded like in my mind now. The addition of the cobwebs also helps add to
the suspense. It sounds like Robert is a real jokester. You mention that he was telling jokes that
made you laugh so hard that you couldn’t walk. Were these scary jokes related to the haunted
house? It so I really think you should maybe give your readers an example of one of the actual
jokes that Robert told about the house. I think this would not only provide more description
about the haunted house for your first paragraph, it would also help to paint a character sketch of
Robert so your readers know more about what type of person he is.
Student: Ok, a couple that I remember were “Why are graveyards so noisy? Because of all the
coffin” and “Who greets you at the door of a haunted house? A ghost host”
Teacher: I think it would be powerful to include both of those, not only would it add a little bit of
humor combined with your suspense, it would also give your readers a clear picture of Robert’s
personality. The biggest element of suspense occurs in the second paragraph when you enter the
house and encounter the monster. As a reader I want to know more about this monster. So let’s
think of some sensory details that you could use to describe the monster so that readers are able
to clearly see the monster in their minds. In other words what did it look like, sound like, smell
like or possibly even feel like?
Student: Well, it appeared to be a ghost but it had arms and legs. It was at least twice as tall as
Robert with big hands. It had a white, ghostly appearance. It was fast too, its body could pass
through the old dusty furniture without having to go around it like humans do. It didn’t talk or
anything, just kind of made a swooshing sound as it moved through the air. It was strong though
it had quite a grab on Robert’s arm, I had to pull really hard on his hair to get him out of the
ghost’s big claws. The ghost itself did not have any scent to it, but the house smelled very old
and musty.
Teacher: That is an excellent start to improving on your description of the monster ghost.
Remember those details when you go back to revise because I think it is so important that you
allow your readers to really be able to visualize this ghost in their own minds as if they were
there. Another suggestion I have is to try to add actual dialogue between Robert and you in the
story. Since you already state the things Robert and you say to each other, it won’t be hard to
make these statements into actual dialogue using quotations and dialogue tags. I also want you
to try eliminating tired verbs like “said” and using more descriptive dialogue tags that allow your
readers to actually hear in their minds how the speaker sounds. Remember we brainstormed that
long list of dialogue tags in our writer’s notebooks so you can refer back to that. So for
example, instead of writing “Robert said Shhhh it’s only a stray cat”, you could instead write
“Robert frantically whispered, ‘Shhhh it’s only a stray cat’”.
Student: I like that idea, I really used a lot of dialogue in my last story so maybe I could use it as
a model to help me. I remember how you said that dialogue is a great way to show the voice in
my writing.
Teacher: That is an excellent idea to use a previous story as a model for your current writing.
That is one of the reasons why we spend so much time looking at the writing of published
authors so we can learn to read like writers, modeling the patterns, stripes and the curves of
words and sentences like Katie Ray (2012) explains. The last revisions I want to help you make
involve revising some of your specific word choices to make them more descriptive and to
eliminate those overly used, tired words. I want you to look at the words you use to describe the
monster. Do you see any non-specific words that might not allow readers to picture the monster
in their minds?
Student: Umm…, maybe “thing” and “something”. I should probably revise those to make them
more specific to the actual monster.
Teacher: Great, those were the two I was thinking of. Remember how you improved your
overall description of the monster, keep that in mind as you find replacements for “thing” and
“something” in your writing. Next I am looking at an adjective in the second paragraph that
describes what the fog felt like to you. Can you find the adjective that I might want you to revise
because it is an overly used tired word?
Student: Probably “nice”.
Teacher: Exactly. I really like how the fog was “creepy” but I am confused as a reader of what
you mean by “nice”. So when you revise, I want you to think about another adjective that you
could use in place of “nice”, probably not one that means the same as “nice” but one that goes
along with “creepy” and contributes to the suspense and scare factor of the story. Also when you
revise I am noticing some boring verbs like “went” and “ran” in your story. My suggestion is to
use a thesaurus to find synonyms for these words in order to make them stronger verbs. Using
stronger verbs like crept or strolled to replace “went” will make your writing more exciting and
in this case more suspenseful for your readers. Can you think of a stronger verb that you might
be able to use in place of “ran”?
Student: Maybe sprinted or scrambled?
Teacher: Sounds like either of those would be great word choices. Lastly, I want you to reread to
me the last two sentences of your story.
Student reads the last two sentences of the story.
Teacher: Do you notice how you keep using the word “and” over and over again. I think I
counted four times in the last sentence alone. I want you to think about how you might be able
to revise these sentences to eliminate some of the connectives like “and”, “but” and “then” so
they are not overused. Possibly shortening these sentences by getting rid of the connectives will
not only eliminate the chance of run-on sentences, they will also allow you to have a more
effective voice because you will not be repeating the same words over and over again. Using
these connectives repeatedly, especially at the conclusion of your piece not only weakens
fluency, it also makes your ideas harder to follow for your readers.
Student: Ok, I will try that. I guess I didn’t really realize that I used “and” so much until I read it
aloud to you.
Teacher: That is why reading a piece aloud to an adult or even a peer can be so beneficial. It
allows you to hear parts of your writing that you would have never picked up on if you continued
to read it silently to yourself. I think we accomplished quite a bit in this conference and the new
ideas we brainstormed will really help you improve your word choice and make your voice even
stronger in your piece. So what are the top three things you learned in this conference that you
are going to work on in your revisions?
Student: I am going to revise my introduction to include more sensory details about the haunted
house. I also plan on improving my description of the ghostly monster by adding more vivid
adjectives and stronger verbs. I will also revise the overly used tired verbs like “said”, “went”
and “ran”, along with the non-descriptive adjectives like “nice”. I want to make my story more
suspenseful and really allow my readers to feel how scared and frightened I was throughout the
experience.
Teacher: Well it sounds like you have excellent revision goals in mind now to really improve
your word choice, which will undoubtedly make your piece stronger by not only adding to its
clarity, but also its voice. I am excited to read your final copy and really be able to picture the
scenery and events in my mind while I read.