Halloween fills our days with spooky sights, our bowls with tasty treats, and our classrooms with keyed up kiddos! While most students would agree this is a very fun time of year, most teachers would agree it’s also a very challenging one. As we teachers are feeling the push of helping our students achieve numerous skills, the students are feeling the pull of the Halloween fun. How can we accomplish amazing writing with our little and big ghouls during this candy induced intoxicated time?
As I walked around one school recently in Highlands Ranch, CO, I observed which writing skills and strategies were being taught, and found that all of them are conducive to incorporating some Halloween or fall themes, which makes writing much more fun for students (and let’s be honest, more fun for us to teach. Who doesn’t like Halloween?!). For some strategies you may think, “I do this every year,” though I hope maybe you see this as somewhat of a Pinterest writing board offering a few fresh ideas.
Elementary School
In the primary grades, I saw kids graphing, measuring and weighing pumpkins, as well as comparing and contrasting the many varieties. Perfect! Apples would work, too. Or, practice comparing and contrasting skills after creating some fun scarecrows, or gathering fall leaves. This also provides a good topic for an opinion sentence (“I like _____________ apples the best, because_____________.”), or paragraph (“I like _____apples the best for two reasons.”).
Another class was busy learning how to write imagined narratives. Sometime it’s difficult for students to come up with an ending (or a beginning or middle!), so offer up the choice to write a “scar story.” The story ends with the main character having an interesting scar. The rest of the story should tell how he/she got it! No weapons can be involved. Creativity gets the prize!
Middle School
As I moved through the intermediate grades, I observed some teachers working on figurative language. What if you brainstormed a list of Halloween or fall items (ie black cats, full moons, mangy werewolves, steamy cauldrons, bony skeletons, bright leaves, crisp apples, etc.) then had students create similes or metaphors from those? One might read, “The stew simmering on the stove looked like a witch’s cauldron on Halloween night.” If more guided practice is needed, provide a framed sentence: “ The ______________________looked like a witch’s cauldron on Halloween night.” Or,”____________ ________________________was as crisp as a fall apple.” Students love working with a partner or small group, so give each team a different framed sentence to complete. Of course they’ll want to illustrate it! And, voila! Wall décor for the Halloween party.
High School
For your high school students practicing argumentative writing, some interesting topics to explore might be:
*should Halloween continue to be celebrated on the 31st of October, or would it be better to change it to falling on the last Saturday of October?
*should students be allowed to wear clown costumes? Does age play a factor? Location of event?
*at what age should kids stop trick-or-treating?
When teaching argumentative writing, we explore the art of argument. Try this activity:
Bring in or simply list four to five different kinds of candy and have students choose which one they feel is the best. They then put themselves in small groups with the like-minded students where they will create and present a commercial selling the audience on their choice (there may, of course, be more than one group selling the same candy, as you’ll want to limit the groups to no more than four students). Each type of argument must be included: Logos (logical), Ethos (writer’s credibility) and Pathos (emotional). The skit rules are: props must be readily available, and all members must participate (though not every person has to have a speaking role).
I love fall and all that goes with it, and I love teaching kids to write, so what’s better than the two combined (besides having November 1st as a vacation day)?! Well, you don’t have to sacrifice those critical writing standards in order to fit in some Halloween fun. Plus, you don’t want to be considered the wicked witch/warlock during this exciting time of year! So, sit back, have another KitKat and add some fall flair to your next lesson.
