Objectives
SWBAT develop a topic in multiple paragraphs using topic sentences and supporting details.
SWBAT create descriptive sentences or edit existing sentences to make them more descriptive.
Rationale: I chose to focus this lesson on editing sentences to make them more descriptive and to add sentences which contain supporting detail (of the main topic/paragraph) because I noticed that this was an aspect missing from one student, and I think it is pertinent to the whole class.
Standards
Writing
GLE 1. The student understands and uses a writing process
1.3 Revises to improve text.
GLE 3. The student writes clearly and effectively.
3.1 Develops ideas and organizes writing.
English Language Development
• Uses descriptive sentences
• Develops a topic in multiple paragraphs using topic sentences and supporting details
• Distinguishes between relevant and irrelevant details
Materials
White board and marker (or large post-it paper) for shared all-class writing
Story or informational reading in Science, Social Studies, etc. for students to do small group shared writing (enough copies for each member of group)
Student writing journals and pencils for students to write/take notes
Instructional Strategies
This is a multi-day, multi-step, interdisciplinary lesson that works on improving writing (specifically the five paragraph essay) with regard to developing and organizing ideas, making revisions, and designing paragraphs around a central topic with supporting details.
The teacher should begin this lesson with modeling a shared writing. It would be best to choose as a topic either a book that most students have read or are familiar with (Harry Potter) or a film (age appropriate), or a reading done for Science or Social Studies class. Once you have identified the source for your shared writing, call the class to either clear their desks or come to the carpet.
The teacher will model the shared writing process for writing a five paragraph essay to answer a main question or topic by giving three reasons and finding supporting details. The teacher will model choosing a main topic for the essay. For example, in the film Finding Nemo, why does Nemo’s father travel the ocean to find his son? The teacher will then model brainstorming ideas and noting supporting facts from the film. Students will be encouraged to join in. Possibilities are: Nemo’s father loves him, Nemo’s father is scared for him, Nemo’s father would be all alone without Nemo. Then, call on students to share specific parts of the film that demonstrate Nemo’s father’s love, fear, etc. The teacher will write all the ideas on the board/poster. The teacher will organize the supporting facts into one of the three categories. Then, the teacher will model creating paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details. The first and last paragraphs need to be clear introduction and conclusions that point to the main topic. The teacher should purposefully write several boring sentences with repeated wording.
Then, the teacher can go back through and revise some of the wording to make it more interesting, active, and engaging. The teacher should ask the students for ideas and contributions about how to make the language more exciting. Once the entire process has been modeled, tell the students they will get into groups you assign and work on this same process for the next three days during writing time. Divide up the class into small groups of 4-5 students per group. Do not ability group.
Stage 2: Students will get into small groups which the teacher assigns in order to do a shared writing on a topic of their choosing based on a reading from Science or Social Studies. The students will read the article. Then the students can talk about the reading and ask each other any clarifying questions about meaning. Then, the students can reread the article, this time highlighting important points. Then, the students will share out some of their ideas for the topic sentence or question. The students will vote on the topic they like best and begin to find supporting details. Students will need to organize the details and come up with three paragraphs supporting their main topic.
Stage 3: Students will get into their groups and revise their sentences. They need to check their word choice to ensure it is engaging. Students also need to ensure their supporting details are strong. During this time, the teacher can go around and sit in and observe the groups. The teacher may make a few suggestions, but try to defer to the group. The goal is to have students monitor their own writing. When students have their essay finished, the teacher will have a writing conference with the group to discuss their essay and see how they met the objectives.
Stage 4: Students will write their own essay. It can be based on a book or one of the articles that another group read. Give students time to brainstorm their ideas and make their points. Spend three days getting the essay down on paper. Then have students meet in paired writing conferences and get feedback. Students need to continue to edit and make changes. Students will take this writing through to publishing. Teacher can decide how to display final product in a class book, poster, or oral presentation.
Assessment
Students will be assessed by their peers for group participation (3 - helped/participated, 1 - misbehaved or did not participate)
Students will be assessed by the teacher during the small group writing conference based on participation and student contributions to the group writing (3 – student contributions noted, 1-student disengaged)
Students will be assessed on their supporting details (3 - strong, 1 - poor or weak, 9 total points)
Students will be assessed on their thoughtful revisions to make the writing engaging (3 – revisions evident, 1- some revision)
Showing posts with label project1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label project1. Show all posts
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Literacy Project 1 Analysis
Analysis
I based this analysis on the only writing sample that McKinley would share with me, his color poem; a short essay he wrote in October 2010 which his teacher sent to me because McKinley was hesitant to share his writing with me; and his spelling inventory.
Meaning and Ownership
McKinley willingly shared his “Green” color poem with me at our first meeting. The poem contained a number of easily recognizable green objects such as plants, grass, limes, and slime. The poem consisted of three stanzas, with 4 lines comprising each stanza. The first and third lines were to have five syllables and the second and forth lines were to have four syllables and rhyme. McKinley’s first stanza does not rhyme, and all the ending words of his last stanza rhyme but the poem seems to deviate from the green focus; the last two lines being: “Solar beam is sight, People are right!” McKinley also showed me his notes as he brainstormed for the poem and many of his ideas, such as “mint, continent, Sprite, leaves, Exit sign, aliens, and soldiers”, never made it into his final version. McKinley shared his first draft of the poem, which does not follow any of the rhyming convention, but has a much more natural flow to the writing. McKinley showed me how he separated his green brainstorm into different sensory categories, and his first draft poem paints a more robust description of green. Two of the lines that evoke this sensory expression are, “Green is lime, Green makes you cool, chill, have fun” and “Green feels like slime, Green is mint.”
McKinley was very reluctant to share any of his other writings with me, so I asked his teacher for another writing sample. I wonder what his response would have been if I had first shared with him another piece of my own writing. Routman encourages teachers to share their own writing life with their students in order to bond with the students (Writing Essentials, p.44-45). The writing sample I received from McKinley’s teacher was an essay written over three months ago. I don’t know if this is a piece that McKinley chose, or if his teacher simply passed along an old writing assignment. The piece is a five-paragraph essay, with an introduction, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. The piece is not titled, but the subject of the writing is “a hidden child”. I am not sure if this essay is a response to another book or an actual event. McKinley mentions a girl named Monique who “lived in five places” and he describes the difficulty of finding a hiding place. It is unclear who the hidden child is and why he or she needs to be in hiding.
Six Trait Assessment
Regarding McKinley’s “Green” poem, his brainstorm ideas were very original in that he tied color representations to the five senses. However, his final product did not incorporate many of his most creative ideas and the result was a disconnected ramble with no discernable point. His essay was centered around the topic of “a hidden child”, but McKinley failed to explain who is a hidden child. His essay left the reader with multiple questions. His writing appeared to come from some experience or personal knowledge, but he needed more detail in order to connect to his readers in a personal way.
In terms of organization, McKinley’s writing assessment essay from October is textbook. This piece of writing has a recognizable introduction and conclusion, easily identified because both are labeled. His introduction is intriguing, “What was it like to be a hidden child?” McKinley claims it was difficult or “almost impossible” and then lists his three reasons: “hunger”, moving from place to place, and finding adequate hiding places. The next three paragraphs deal with each reason in turn, showing logical sequencing. McKinley’s pacing is fairly controlled, although he could spend more time on details.
McKinley’s voice comes through loud and clear on the “hidden child” piece. He speaks directly to the reader in a compelling way in his introduction, claiming “I’ll explain everything if you read this essay.” The writer connects with his readers by offering expressive warnings in the form of multiple exclamation points, capitalized letters (“MURDERED!!!”), and lingering questions such as “what are you gonna do?”. McKinley’s voice in his “Green” poem was sacrificed to the mechanics of the poem structure and his descriptions of common-place green objects feels jumbled. His first draft of the poem has more engaging language and descriptions which point to the person behind the words.
McKinley’s word choice in his essay and poem leave room for improvement. His poem structure was repetitive and he used common-place or unimaginative words in his final draft. McKinley was able to brainstorm some creative descriptors of the color green, but sadly many of these did not make the final draft. In his essay, McKinley repeatedly used the word “difficult” to describe being a hidden child. I think McKinley’s writing would benefit from a classroom word wall (Routman, WE, p. 165) where more descriptive and active words could be modeled to replace tired or overused words. McKinley is an English language learner and so a word wall would enhance his language learning. McKinley did struggle with some language and parts of speech in his writing. McKinley used the cliché “okey dokie” which seemed out of place both with the tone of the essay and the preceding sentence.
In regards to sentence fluency, McKinley did have a cadence to his poem and his essay. He effectively varied his sentence or poetry line length, and his fragment sentences added style and voice. Indeed, there are parts of his essay that invite expressive oral reading, such as “if you hide in a bad place, uh oh! MURDERED!!!”. Many of the lines in McKinley’s first and final draft poems begin with the word “Green” which gets tedious. In his essay, McKinley opened with a question, “What was it like to be a hidden child?” and each of the following paragraphs begins by restating the question in the answer, but the phrasing is incorrect. For example, “One reason what was it like to be a hidden child is hunger.” This specific type of phrasing error seems common among English language learners.
I was pleasantly surprised by some of the writing conventions that McKinley used in his essay. He effectively manipulated conventions for style and to show voice. McKinley successfully organized his paragraphs around a main point and his paragraph breaks were appropriately used. His essay had just one spelling error. Ending punctuation and beginning sentence capitalization were used correctly most of the time. McKinley did struggle with grammar mistakes and these mistakes affected meaning, which was distracting. McKinley’s poem also contained just one spelling error, “sabre” for saber; but he correctly used parenthesis and punctuation. McKinley’s attention to punctuation conventions helps the reader; without the consistent use of capitals and punctuation his writing would be terribly confusing as Routman explains in Writing Essentials (p. 161).
Spelling Development
McKinley completed the Elementary Spelling Inventory on January 13, 2011. He spelled 20 of the 25 words correctly. His five spelling errors were “shoping” (shopping), “caddle” (cattle), “seller” (cellar), “fortunite” (fortunate), and “opizition” (opposition). Since McKinley is an ELL student, I was impressed with his spelling ability. He correctly spelled “civilize”, “pleasure”, and “confident” which were among the more challenging words on the list. McKinley made only one spelling mistake in his color poem and one mistake in his essay (“excape” for escape). Based on McKinley’s misspellings, I would classify him to be in the Syllables and Affixes spelling stage. A majority of his misspellings took place somewhere in the middle of the words, not at the beginning or end. Another thing to note with his misspellings is that they can be pronounced similarly, if not identically, to the correct word, with the exception of “shoping”. I anticipate McKinley’s spelling to improve as he learns about bases and root words, and the various affixes that can be attached to these base/root words.
I based this analysis on the only writing sample that McKinley would share with me, his color poem; a short essay he wrote in October 2010 which his teacher sent to me because McKinley was hesitant to share his writing with me; and his spelling inventory.
Meaning and Ownership
McKinley willingly shared his “Green” color poem with me at our first meeting. The poem contained a number of easily recognizable green objects such as plants, grass, limes, and slime. The poem consisted of three stanzas, with 4 lines comprising each stanza. The first and third lines were to have five syllables and the second and forth lines were to have four syllables and rhyme. McKinley’s first stanza does not rhyme, and all the ending words of his last stanza rhyme but the poem seems to deviate from the green focus; the last two lines being: “Solar beam is sight, People are right!” McKinley also showed me his notes as he brainstormed for the poem and many of his ideas, such as “mint, continent, Sprite, leaves, Exit sign, aliens, and soldiers”, never made it into his final version. McKinley shared his first draft of the poem, which does not follow any of the rhyming convention, but has a much more natural flow to the writing. McKinley showed me how he separated his green brainstorm into different sensory categories, and his first draft poem paints a more robust description of green. Two of the lines that evoke this sensory expression are, “Green is lime, Green makes you cool, chill, have fun” and “Green feels like slime, Green is mint.”
McKinley was very reluctant to share any of his other writings with me, so I asked his teacher for another writing sample. I wonder what his response would have been if I had first shared with him another piece of my own writing. Routman encourages teachers to share their own writing life with their students in order to bond with the students (Writing Essentials, p.44-45). The writing sample I received from McKinley’s teacher was an essay written over three months ago. I don’t know if this is a piece that McKinley chose, or if his teacher simply passed along an old writing assignment. The piece is a five-paragraph essay, with an introduction, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. The piece is not titled, but the subject of the writing is “a hidden child”. I am not sure if this essay is a response to another book or an actual event. McKinley mentions a girl named Monique who “lived in five places” and he describes the difficulty of finding a hiding place. It is unclear who the hidden child is and why he or she needs to be in hiding.
Six Trait Assessment
Regarding McKinley’s “Green” poem, his brainstorm ideas were very original in that he tied color representations to the five senses. However, his final product did not incorporate many of his most creative ideas and the result was a disconnected ramble with no discernable point. His essay was centered around the topic of “a hidden child”, but McKinley failed to explain who is a hidden child. His essay left the reader with multiple questions. His writing appeared to come from some experience or personal knowledge, but he needed more detail in order to connect to his readers in a personal way.
In terms of organization, McKinley’s writing assessment essay from October is textbook. This piece of writing has a recognizable introduction and conclusion, easily identified because both are labeled. His introduction is intriguing, “What was it like to be a hidden child?” McKinley claims it was difficult or “almost impossible” and then lists his three reasons: “hunger”, moving from place to place, and finding adequate hiding places. The next three paragraphs deal with each reason in turn, showing logical sequencing. McKinley’s pacing is fairly controlled, although he could spend more time on details.
McKinley’s voice comes through loud and clear on the “hidden child” piece. He speaks directly to the reader in a compelling way in his introduction, claiming “I’ll explain everything if you read this essay.” The writer connects with his readers by offering expressive warnings in the form of multiple exclamation points, capitalized letters (“MURDERED!!!”), and lingering questions such as “what are you gonna do?”. McKinley’s voice in his “Green” poem was sacrificed to the mechanics of the poem structure and his descriptions of common-place green objects feels jumbled. His first draft of the poem has more engaging language and descriptions which point to the person behind the words.
McKinley’s word choice in his essay and poem leave room for improvement. His poem structure was repetitive and he used common-place or unimaginative words in his final draft. McKinley was able to brainstorm some creative descriptors of the color green, but sadly many of these did not make the final draft. In his essay, McKinley repeatedly used the word “difficult” to describe being a hidden child. I think McKinley’s writing would benefit from a classroom word wall (Routman, WE, p. 165) where more descriptive and active words could be modeled to replace tired or overused words. McKinley is an English language learner and so a word wall would enhance his language learning. McKinley did struggle with some language and parts of speech in his writing. McKinley used the cliché “okey dokie” which seemed out of place both with the tone of the essay and the preceding sentence.
In regards to sentence fluency, McKinley did have a cadence to his poem and his essay. He effectively varied his sentence or poetry line length, and his fragment sentences added style and voice. Indeed, there are parts of his essay that invite expressive oral reading, such as “if you hide in a bad place, uh oh! MURDERED!!!”. Many of the lines in McKinley’s first and final draft poems begin with the word “Green” which gets tedious. In his essay, McKinley opened with a question, “What was it like to be a hidden child?” and each of the following paragraphs begins by restating the question in the answer, but the phrasing is incorrect. For example, “One reason what was it like to be a hidden child is hunger.” This specific type of phrasing error seems common among English language learners.
I was pleasantly surprised by some of the writing conventions that McKinley used in his essay. He effectively manipulated conventions for style and to show voice. McKinley successfully organized his paragraphs around a main point and his paragraph breaks were appropriately used. His essay had just one spelling error. Ending punctuation and beginning sentence capitalization were used correctly most of the time. McKinley did struggle with grammar mistakes and these mistakes affected meaning, which was distracting. McKinley’s poem also contained just one spelling error, “sabre” for saber; but he correctly used parenthesis and punctuation. McKinley’s attention to punctuation conventions helps the reader; without the consistent use of capitals and punctuation his writing would be terribly confusing as Routman explains in Writing Essentials (p. 161).
Spelling Development
McKinley completed the Elementary Spelling Inventory on January 13, 2011. He spelled 20 of the 25 words correctly. His five spelling errors were “shoping” (shopping), “caddle” (cattle), “seller” (cellar), “fortunite” (fortunate), and “opizition” (opposition). Since McKinley is an ELL student, I was impressed with his spelling ability. He correctly spelled “civilize”, “pleasure”, and “confident” which were among the more challenging words on the list. McKinley made only one spelling mistake in his color poem and one mistake in his essay (“excape” for escape). Based on McKinley’s misspellings, I would classify him to be in the Syllables and Affixes spelling stage. A majority of his misspellings took place somewhere in the middle of the words, not at the beginning or end. Another thing to note with his misspellings is that they can be pronounced similarly, if not identically, to the correct word, with the exception of “shoping”. I anticipate McKinley’s spelling to improve as he learns about bases and root words, and the various affixes that can be attached to these base/root words.
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