First, second, and seventh periods all worked on creating Expert Inventories. These are lists of topics students can readily write about owing to their “expertise.” The activity usually produces a list similar to this:

• football
• family
• shopping
• video games

The next step was to narrow some of those topics down, possibly finding two or three sub-topics from them:

• “football” produces “playing wide receiver”;
• “family” becomes “dealing with my annoying little sister”;
• “shopping” becomes “finding the perfect shoes”; and,
• “video games” becomes “how to win at The Sims 3.”

We shared our inventories with others, prompting new additions.

Finally, we did a four-minute free-write on one of the topics from the newly-created Expert Inventory.

Homework

First, second, and fourth periods: add ten items to the expert inventory.