Episode description

The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows of our tiny English department office as I ran in to grab the papers I’d just printed. As I waited for them to finish, I examined the old books stacked on the shelf above the printer, brought to our school in  Bulgaria by another ex-pat teacher many years ago, judging by the dust. One caught my eye - William Zinsser’s guide to writing nonfiction - On Writing Well. I snagged it with my papers and headed upstairs. Little did I know, I had just picked up my new favorite writing book, and the one that would give me my most consistent improvement for my own writing. It’s the switch that made me start this podcast with “The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows” instead of “It was late one afternoon.” Did you spot it?  Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Today we’re talking about a simple but highly impactful piece of writing advice you can give to every student. I heard it first from William Z all those years ago, and now I want to share it with you.

OK, here’s the simple rule. English students need to watch out for the verb “To be.” Sure, it’s useful. I just used it. But it’s actually too useful. It can quickly become the driver of any piece of writing with constant lines like: “He was bored,” “they were hungry, “she was late,” “we’re tired.”  When we see writing like this, we might be tempted to launch into a fairly complex explanation of show don’t tell. But it’s even easier to give students a highlighter and ask them to find all the “to be” verbs in their piece. Have them highlight “was,” were,” and “are,” then pause to take in the fact that their whole piece is now bright yellow. Then show them how to flip the switch.

Let’s take “he was bored” as our model. How can a kid write “he was bored” without the “to be” construction? 

How about this: “After six hours of waiting at the airport gate, Ben had finally mastered the art of sleeping standing up.” 

Or we can try “They were hungry,” switching in “Jen and Jenny felt sure they could eat a dozen of the salted caramel cream donuts immediately. Each.” 

As you can see, in general the switch away from “to be” leads to far more specific descriptive writing. It’s like a game, shifting writing from black and white to full color. 

Will there still be times when “to be” makes sense? For sure. You don’t want kids to change it every single time. But making them aware of the potential can make a huge impact on their writing. I know it has on mine over years of writing for you! 

If you’re looking for a way to help students remember this tip, try spending fifteen minutes on a poster project. Invite every student to create a poster featuring a boring “TO BE” sentence in black and white, with the “To be” verb construction in red. Then have them make a second poster for a new version of the sentence with more vivid description matched by more vivid, colorful imagery. Put the best ones up on your wall as a reminder of this tip, then refer back to your models when students are editing their writing. 

Such a simple rule, but it makes such a big impact. Remind your students that “to be” can BE boring, and you’ll help them level up their writing game across genres. 

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