Monday Motivation: Alliterative Adverb Artworks

Isn't it a marvelous feeling when the stars align and a lesson goes off perfectly? (Did you catch the adverb I slipped in that sentence?)

That's how yesterday worked. I knew we would be tackling sentences with adverbs in them this week. (How is an adverb used? Where can it be placed in a sentence? How can I intensify the meaning by using adverbs? etc.)

But I wanted to start out with a bit of "word-play" to get my students motivated. In my language arts classrooms, my students and I play with words frequently. When I want the students to use a part of speech, it's important that they have examples of how it can be used effectively. They must understand how each part of speech and each word they choose can lead the reader along different paths.

For example, take the adverb, stupendously.
                               Stupendously, the actor read his lines.

Had the word been stupidly, clumsily, articulately, the sentence would take on an entire new meaning.

I give my students this warning: Not every word can be used so serendipitously.

Back to the Marvelous Monday...

This year, after reviewing the general rules of adverb use and jotting this details and examples down in their notes, I read from the mentor text, Animalia by Graeme Base.

I specifically chose pages that used ALLITERATION and ADVERBS. (Such as the "Bees" page.) After clarifying how alliteration works (two or more words with the same beginning sound), I set them to work. Their assignment, simple--create a NEW page to include in Grahame Base's book.
Requirements:
Students had to create a silly sentence
Use alliteration for the subject noun, action verb and adverb
(they could alliterate more if they wanted to)
Sentence structure must be correct in form.
The subject MUST be a creature
The illustration must accurately portray the action described in the sentence
The sentence MUST be correct in spelling and punctuation (but I allowed them to capitalized for sake of artistic vision)
It had to be in color,
and it had to be completed neatly 

Here are a few more examples of what they came up with. Needless to say, on Tuesday, they had no problem coming up with new adverbs!