Talking Turkey on Twitter

Thinking 140 characters to be an easy entry point for a writing lesson before a holiday, I tasked the students to create a Thanksgiving tweet. The catch?  They were tweeting as a turkey!

In our Writing Workshop, we've discussed R.A.F.T.s as things that should be considered helpful when writing.  These are Role (Who/what am I?), Audience (Who am I writing to?), Format (What style/form), Topic (What am I writing about?) and the inclusion of a strong word.

For this #turkeytweet, I gave the students a twitter template (Format--thanks Jim Covais at Covais Tech) and told them to tweet as a turkey (Role) at Thanksgiving (topic).

Neriah's tweet

It is evident that creativity abounded in this lesson with choices in usernames, header images and profile pictures!  Despite Twitter being for the 13+ crowd, these students clearly had some experience with the inner workings of social media with their inclusion of emojis and hashtags!

@IAMAHUMAN took a political stance but fooled no one!

Jace's tweet

...while @TurkeyLover432  had other suggestions for Thanksgiving dinner...

Reese's Tweet

@Turkey4real ignored the 140 character limit as Twitter is currently testing doubling the limit to 280!

Jazmyn's tweet

It's especially rewarding when these child writers make the effort to include many features of the text we are practicing.  Many of their efforts came off as polished and authentic tweets from a turkey.

Caleb's tweet

Maybe we should #eatmorepumpkin this Thanksgiving instead of turkey?  Afterall, #turkeylivesmatter.

If you're on Twitter, look for and like the tweets included in this blog and others.  

Happy Thanksgiving, eh!

~MissBrooks