Grammar for Writing:
Level Gold — Chapter 1
A Horse, A Badge, and Keys to the Jail
Photo: Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp
Tales of frontier life in the Old West remain a living part of our culture even today. Movies and novels depict the struggles of the early settlers on a lawless frontier, and songs celebrate the enduring myths and romantic images of gallant outlaws and true-blue lawmen. People reenact the adventures of those heroes and villains, and visit the towns and sites where Old West history was made.

Your Assignment
Imagine that you are responsible for developing exhibits at a Visitors Center in a legendary Old West town. Investigate the life and achievements of one of the Old West's heroes—a lawman. Create a "Biography Board" that will portray the lawman for tourists who visit the Center. A Biography Board is a collection of material about your subject's life and accomplishments that is mounted on poster board.

Include a one-page summary; quotations by and about your lawman; a list of events from his life; and pictures, portraits, cartoons, and illustrations that depict aspects of his life. Your lawman's biography, together with the work of your classmates, should give an accurate picture of the role these men played in bringing law and order to the Wild West.

STEP 1: Initial Search
Begin your research with visits to the following Web sites:

Search for information about lawmen. Take notes on places and people, and record general information about law and order in the Old West. Gather information about three different lawmen.

STEP 2: Focus Your Search
Narrow your search to one lawman. Use cluster diagrams to organize the details you have discovered about that person. (See Grammar for Writing, Level Gold, pages 10-11).

Search the Internet for more information on the lawman you chose. To find a comprehensive biography on your subject, visit the following Web site:
Explore other resources, such as books, an encyclopedia, and newspaper and magazine articles.

STEP 3: Define Your Audience
Make your information interesting to a general audience, which may have heard about your lawman but not know much about his accomplishments, background, or family life. Make your presentation informative and lively—you want your Biography Board to capture the attention of your audience and keep them interested as they look at everything on the Board.

STEP 4: Develop an Outline
Outline the research material you uncover. Include the following information: (1) background and training or experience, (2) record as a lawman, and (3) major outlaws the lawman faced, and (4) and any specific activities or situations in which the lawman participated.

Composition Connection
One of the most difficult tasks writers have is to decide the best way to organize their ideas. (See Grammar for Writing, Level Gold, Chapter 1, for prewriting techniques that will help you develop this project.) Using techniques such as freewriting, brainstorming, and clustering will help you become a more successful writer.

Write Like A Pro
Heroes are not one hundred percent good, and villains are not one hundred percent bad. Many of our most famous Old West lawmen had some bad habits, or acted in ways that counterbalanced the good they did. Make an effort to be objective: Show all aspects of the lawman in order to add intrigue, variety, and balance to the Biography Board.

STEP 5: Organize Your Ideas and Write a Rough Draft
Organize your ideas about your Biography Board before beginning to write the sketch about the lawman. You might address questions such as, "What do I want to display? What are the most important points I want to make?"

Using your outline, write the rough draft. Be sure to include facts rather than opinions.
Photo: Sheriff's Badge

STEP 6: Revise, Edit and Proofread Your Writing
Reread the complete sketch. Be sure that each paragraph has a topic sentence and that all the sentences in the paragraph support that topic. Add lively descriptions, quotations by or about the lawman, and any anecdotes you may have found, to give visitors a full portrait of this hero of the Old West. If you use quotations, consider putting them, with attributions, in large letters throughout your materials to add visual interest to the Biography Board.

Edit your materials for grammatical errors; then proofread your work carefully for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors.

STEP 7: Publish Your Work
Present your Biography Board to the class. Your English teacher and your American history teacher may wish to display all the Biography Boards your class produces.

Copyright ©2007 by William H. Sadlier, Inc. All rights reserved.