C&R 5 - Teaching Sentence Construction
At the beginning of the chapter, the author emphasizes the importance of teaching young learners, specifically kindergarten-aged students, how to organize, plan, and revise their writing. It states that instruction is too focused on spelling, handwriting, and grammar. However, our other textbooks support the practice of handwriting skills and encourages explicit and ample amount of time blocked during the school day to practice spelling and word work. What are your thoughts on the writing process in the early years of learning? Do you lean towards the writing process as a priority to teach in the classroom? Or would you tend to focus your instruction on word work and handwriting? If you imagine a balanced curriculum, what would you envision it to be concerning spelling, grammar, and the writing process?
Understanding the different types of sentences, declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory, can be a difficult concept to grasp. What are some strategies you have tried in your classroom to teach these types of sentences? Were there any lessons in the text that you would like to implement in your classroom? There were also various strategies, listed on p. 89, to differentiate instruction for sentence development. Editing checklists and peer editing is always very engaging for my students. What are some ways you differentiate writing?
C&R 6 - Genre-Specific Writing Instruction
Teaching students how to write specifically within a genre can be a challenge. Before attempting to write, the children must understand the types of genres they will be writing about. On page 94, Figure 6.2 shows a table of the phases of instruction and goes into detail about the writing instruction. What are your thoughts concerning this sequence? Does you instruction reflect similar attributes? What have you found most effective during instruction when teaching how to write genre-specific texts? Also, rubrics set expectations for the students. They provide the students an idea of what the instructor is looking for in the text. How do you develop your rubrics? After using your rubrics to grade, what do you do with the results?
Writing in Pre-K
As these students are in the emergent stage of writing, they are still beginning to understand how written letters and words work. This article provides classroom activities that can engage preschool-aged children in writing. Allowing students many opportunities to write during the school day will help develop the connection between words and letters with writing. What are some strategies that you found helpful? Although the activities are preschool-leveled, are there ways to modify the activities to fit your grade level?
I have developed rubrics for the three different genres (narrative, informative/explanatory, and opinion) that my students and I both use. I taught fifth grade for many years, and my students took the state writing test in the spring. When I first taught writing, I realized the importance of creating a rubric to help my students see what was valued and expected in their writing. However, the rubrics that the state provided were not of use to my students because the language used was for the most part too difficult for them to understand. I decided at that point to make my own rubrics using the standards and six traits. As the book suggested it is very important to make sure that the descriptors are clearly defined and different from one level to the next. Like the author’s examples, I too use four levels. 4 is advanced, 3 is passing, and 2 and 1 are not passing. When using the rubrics, I introduced each area one at a time. In this way the rubric acted like more of an analytic rubric. My students would write their pieces, but when I graded them using the rubrics I would pick one area to focus on assessing. In doing this my students could more easily go deeper with each of the components and really develop or build up their strength for each descriptor. After using the rubrics, I decide whether or not more instruction is needed and for what students. At that point, I made groups and did mini lessons for each group that met their area of needs. It has also been helpful for to have the kids score themselves and examples using the rubrics and then we have discussions about why we scored an area the way we did.
ReplyDeleteRubrics are a great way for students to self evaluate and assess themselves, as well as being useful for the teacher. I use a similar scale that ranges from 1-4, with 4 being excelling work, as well. Using these rubrics to group and develop mini lessons is a great idea. You can definitely target specific skills that need extra practice and provide one on one instruction during this time. Great use of assessments!
DeleteThe authors explained the importance of not teaching grammar in isolation. I definitely have and still do devote a time to teach an explicit grammar skill like the book suggests not doing. Oops! Once I have taught that skill, students apply this new knowledge learned in their writing. I struggle with the idea of giving up this block of time that I devote to grammar. I’m curious to hear what others think about this topic and how to best balance it. I know that my students definitely learn more about the skills when they can use them in writing rather than say filling out a grammar worksheet. For example, when you asked about strategies to teach the different types of sentences, I always teach this lesson by having my students write examples of each type. After completing a lesson on sentence types (I guess in isolation), then I usually get chart paper and write each sentence type on a piece of paper. I then have students work in pairs to produce a sentence for each type. The students rotate through the different chart papers of sentence types and read others sentence examples as well. At the end, we do a gallery walk and then wrap up the lesson. The students could then be given a prompt to write about and try using the different sentence types in their piece. In this way, I feel that I have integrated skills instruction into composition instruction as the author suggests, but I may be wrong in how I understood this to work. I’m curious to see how you guys interpreted the process to look when skill instruction is integrated with composition instruction.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your style of teaching grammar is in isolation at all! You're incorporating the grammar skill, as well as composing sentences with structure, the task of reading the sentences, and much more! Your strategy sounds like a very interactive and engaging lesson. Movement and peer interaction is always exciting and motivating for students.
DeleteWhen I teach the types of sentences, I begin by modeling as well. I will provide an anchor chart describing the types of sentences, then we will create sentences together through shared writing, then interactive writing, and last independent writing. We will also play games, like reading a sentence and then writing on the wipe board what punctuation mark belongs at the end, etc.
What are some ways you differentiate writing?
ReplyDeleteDifferentiating writing is definitely a must in every classroom I’ve ever taught. Since the students all have had different exposures to writing and reading, their writing is also extremely varied level wise as well. For example, the students who read more tend to also write better because they try to incorporate what the author has done into their own writing. Of the suggestions listed in the book on page 89, I tend to mostly use the following examples: providing parts of sentences to prompt students writing, interactive writing, providing students with choices to help in writing different sentence types and using a checklist with features that have been taught to edit. One way I teach my students to write different types of sentences is by using a four square type box. The top left box is for a declarative sentence. In the top right box the students stretch their declarative sentences by choosing a number word from a list that we created. The bottom left box is for their interrogative sentence and utilize a list of questions words that we created to choose from to begin their question sentence. In the last bottom right box my students practice writing sentences by beginning those with a subordinate clause. The students are again given a list of subordinating conjunctions from which they can choose. The lists that I provide allow my struggling writers with words that can help them to start those types of sentences when they may struggle to do without the extra help. When the students begin their writing, they reference the four squares as ways to possibly start and close their paragraphs. As students get better at varying the types of sentences that they can write, they no longer need to make the four square.
Moving away from sentence level differentiation, I also differentiate how my students plan. I always show them various ways that they can plan their writing and allow my students to choose how they plan. I have never seen every kid plan in the same way in my classes. Some prefer bubble maps, while others might prefer outlines or just pictures. Some students even do a mixture of various methods.
I also love how the authors used sentence frames to differentiate writing for each genre. This strategy would definitely be helpful for my students who aren’t quite sure how to organize everything into a cohesive whole. I also liked the example on page 89 of the two sentence frames that showed how to vary the level of support for more or less help by providing less or more words in the frame.
I really liked reading about how you teach your students to organize their thoughts in a four square. I attempted a four square organizer as well, however it is much more simple and reflects the stoplight paragraph structure, meaning a green sentence (topic sentence), yellow sentences (supporting sentences), and a closing statement. I can definitely use your method to differentiate for my advanced writers! Thanks!
DeleteAs for my friends that struggle with writing, we do bubble maps, and practice transferring our ideas into complete sentences. I work with these students during small group instruction and practice subjects and predicates and using punctuation marks to show a complete thought.
Writing can be a difficult skill to grasp, especially if you have students that do not read often, like you said earlier. The more a student reads, the more complex and elaborate sentences become, using rich vocabulary.
Thanks for sharing how you differentiate instruction for you students, it sounds like it would be extremely successful. I also really liked the four square organizer that you use. Practical and also helps those students that might need to see it in a different way.
DeleteI also have a rubric for some of my 2nd grade students who are well behind peers in writing--it focuses on grammar issues--finger spaces, capital letters, punctuation,stretching out words and one more I can think of right now. Now I think I might eventually adjust and include more of the writing process--maybe include one to say "does my sentence make sense" or something along those lines. I do think oral language has such an impact on writing--and on page 74, the authors state this is such an important factor in writing.
ReplyDeleteI agree that oral language has an enormous impact on writing! Several teahers have had a lightbulb moment during an IEP or staffing on a particular child when I discuss a delay in oral expressive language and how that might be effecting the child in the classroom.
DeleteIn reference to how Chapter 6 stated too much emphasis was placed on spelling, grammar, and handwriting whereas our other books have suggested otherwise- I would tend to agree that we do need to have explicit instruction, at least in certain stages of learning (like the beginning)! I found it interesting that they stated too much emphasis was placed on grammar, spelling, and handwriting because that's essentially all I remember learning about in my elementary years. Or perhaps I have a bad memory. I like the chapters that laid out exactly how to teach each type of genre. I wish my teachers had used something like this. It seems like so many young people struggle with writing, even in college. Teaching them more about each specific genre would help provide them with a better foundation to build upon.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting the two different viewpoints about spelling from the readings. I think a balance is the key. I do think some teachers might be a bit much with the handwriting--I had one teacher tell me one of my students wasn't making a letter the correct way because he didn't start at the top of the page--he started at the bottom. My thought--if it is legible--then I don't really care where he starts the letter. I do think legible handwriting is an important skill.
ReplyDelete