home

= = ** Mr. Cowit's 8th Grade Outdoor Writing **

The following essays were written by my current 8th grade students, some of the great young writers attending McGraw Junior-Senior High School. My middle school students began doing this type of descriptive writing regularly four years ago, beginning with the current seniors in their 8th grade year. We usually go outside three to four times a year, and students spend the class period describing what they experience, attempting to bring the place to life. In the winter, they describe from inside. They then take their writing and revise it, polish it, organize it, and turn it into an essay.

This type of writing helps students to appreciate the wonderful area in which they live and attend school. It helps them find their voices as writers as they develop their descriptive writing skills.

This fall, students did their first description outside of the school day, at a place of their choosing. In the essays that follow, they take us to those places, on a fall evening, so we can experience what they experienced. -Rick Cowit, English teacher at McGraw High School