The Round House Lesson Plan

Writing Like Erdrich

Kind of Activity:

Creative Writing

Objective:

Students will imitate Erdrich's style of compound adjective when writing short stories about themselves.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5

Structure:

Erdrich, who is also a poet, often writes prose like a poet, paying careful attention to her word choice and using vivid imagery. Her sentences often hit deeply like those in a poem would, their wisdom and insight reaching far into the psyche of both humans and society. It is not particularly common for novelists to play with language the way poets do, but Erdrich does. One of...