Wordsmith Apprentice 3rd Edition
Grade 4 through 6
(not compatible with previous editions)


Wordsmith Apprentice: Building Enthusiasm

Writing is a tough subject to teach and, for many students, an even tougher subject to learn. Not every 9-year-old is ready to tackle 3-point essays or 2-page short stories. Pushing students to do so may well be counterproductive. The purpose of Wordsmith Apprentice is to expose youngsters to many kinds of writing in short bites, through the medium of a local newspaper.

True, the newspaper business is changing rapidly and the morning edition or Sunday comics may not be a part of your family routine. But in the little world of Wordsmith Apprentice, our faithful editor is keeping his staff in line and is eager to take on a new cub reporter. The student gets into the spirit by filling out an application (using lots of nouns, both proper and common), and then moves on to writing help-wanted ads (action verbs, anyone?), captions using declarative, interrogative and exclamatory sentences, ads with lots of descriptive adjectives, household hints, and much more. Cub reporters even get to contribute to the games and features page! Along the way they’ll learn how to apply the basic parts of speech and sentence structure. They’ll also enjoy the frequent comic-page tutorials from the editor.

Editor's Introduction
Sample Pages
Lesson Plan for Wordsmith Apprentice