OuiSi · Writing

Write it so they find it

Beta

Grades 2–5 Teaching 40 min Plus 3 to set out, 3 to clear Class any size Set any Prep writing paper

set out 3′ Build the bank 8′ Describe your own 10′ Hide it in a story 14′ The test 8′ clear 3′

Goal: Children write a description precise enough that a reader can pick the card out of a dozen. Descriptive writing with a test attached.
Materials: One OuiSi Photo-Card set. Twelve cards per table, plus one chosen card per child. Writing paper.

Grades 2–3: Description only. Run the test without the story — about 26 min
Grade 4: Full lesson — description hidden inside a story — the full 40 min
Grade 5: The description split across two separate sentences — the full 40 min

1 · Build the bank

8 min

Hold up one card to the whole room.

Give me describing words for this. Not what it is — what it is like.

Collect fifteen or twenty onto the board. Push past the first easy ones.

We have four colors. Give me words that are not colors.

Rough, still, crowded, faded, sharp. The board becomes the bank every child draws from, and because they wrote it, they use it.

2 · Describe your own

10 min

Each child takes one card from the table and keeps which one secret.

Write a description of your card. Use at least three words from the board.

Do not name what it is. If your card has a bird on it, the word bird is banned.

Banning the noun is what forces real description. Without it children write it is a bird and stop.

3 · Hide it in a story

14 min

Now write a short story that has your description inside it. Three or four sentences.

The description has to still be in there, doing its job. Do not water it down.

The constraint is what makes this a writing lesson rather than a vocabulary one. The description has to survive being inside a sentence that is also doing something else.

4 · The test

8 min

All twelve table cards go face up in the middle. Children swap stories with a partner.

Read their story. Now find their card.

When a partner guesses wrong, the feedback writes itself.

Tell your partner which words sent you to the wrong card.

This is the most useful writing feedback in the lesson and none of it comes from you. A wrong guess is specific, immediate, and about the writing rather than the writer.

Watch for

Naming the thing. The ban in step two is the lesson. Watch for it sneaking back in during step three, where it hides more easily.
Descriptions that fit every card. It is colorful and nice. Ask which cards it rules out — if the answer is none, it is not a description yet.
Taking a wrong guess personally. Frame it before step four: a wrong guess is information about the words, not about the writer.
Too many cards. Twelve is right. Thirty makes the test luck, and six makes it too easy.

Adapt

Multilingual learners — the word bank is the scaffold. Let them write the description in their stronger language first.
Dyslexia and emerging writers — dictate the description to a partner who scribes, then do the test as normal.
Speech and language — the whole lesson works spoken, with the description said aloud rather than written.
Follow-on — keep the board of describing words up and add to it every time you use the cards.

Curriculum links. Generating describing words that are not colors · Writing a description precise enough to single out one card among many · Embedding a description inside a narrative without weakening it · Testing writing against a real reader and revising from the result.
Standard codes vary by state and district — these are the skills exercised, for you to map to your own.

Screen-free. No codes and no devices. Works with any OuiSi Photo-Card set.
Pairs well with Spy the connection, which is the spoken version for younger children.