Once again great responses from everyone. Please try and post by the due dates. Some of you have not posted for Session 3 yet.
This session we focus on Word Choice and Sentence Fluency. Both are concrete strategies we can instruct and assess. Please read both chapters and respond to the following assignment. I also sent everyone support materials for both traits.
This assignment is due by May 1. We have an extra week due to the holiday.
Chapter 5 Word Choice
The author breaks Word Choice into 4 categories of language (P. 158):
Striking Language
Exact Language
Natural Language
Beautiful Language
Select the category you would like to spend more time teaching and practicing. Explain why you have chosen that one. What focus lesson or activity would you use to teach students this strategy?
Share a picture book or novel you would use to model word choice for students.
Chapter 6 Sentence Fluency
On Page 195 the author identifies the three qualities of sentence fluency as:
Estaliblishing flow, rhythm, and cadence;
Varying setence length and structure;
Constructing sentences that enhance meaning.
Which focus lesson or activity would you choose for each one of these? Share a picture book or novel you would use to model sentence fluency for your students.
Enjoy your vacation.
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Chapter 5 - Word Choice
ReplyDeleteI need to spend more time having the children work on "Beautiful Language". The children tend to write down exactly what they are thinking about, and do not expand their sentences to include details and descriptions written in an interesting way. They also tend to use words like "nice" (and many other overused words) too often. Giving the children a simple sentence and asking them to expand the sentence is a great way to demonstrate the difference vivid verbs, adjectives and phrases can make. When the children share what they have done with the same sentence, they will hear the effects of adding wonderful words. The picture book Fireflies is absolutely wonderful to show examples of beautiful language and excellent word choice.
Chapter 6 - Sentence Fluency
ReplyDeleteEstablishing flow, rhythm, and cadence: the book by Alvin Schwartz, A Twister of Twists, A tangler of Tongues, sounds like a great focus lesson ~ the children will enjoy saying the tongue twisters and writing their own as they hear the rhythm of language.
Varying sentence length and structure: I am going to have the children trying ending a sentence with a noun. First they will write a few sentences and then revise the sentences to end with a noun. Another idea that sounds like fun as well as being a good teaching tool, is to begin a short sentence and then pass the paper to the next child and have the child change or add a word to make the sentence more specific or interesting.
Constructing sentences that enhance meaning:
Something new I will try is to have the children write a short paragraph and then revise it to use the last word of the previous sentence to begin the next sentence.
Any Mem Fox picture book will model sentence fluency. Koala Lou is a fabulous story.
Marsha (Chapter 5)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Fireflies is a great book to use for this purpose. I purchased the book last year and thought it was a wonderful resource to use to show really powerful vocabulary. Asking students to rewrite a simple sentence and create a much more descriptive sentence is a great way for them to realize what can be done if an effort is made.
Marsha (Chapter 5)
ReplyDeleteThe exercise where a student begins a sentence and passes it along is a great way to have students expand on their thoughts. Also, it holds students accountable for their writing. Mem Fox is a wonderful author (I saw her at Columbia years ago when we were allowed to go to conferences).
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteStriking language is such an important focus for writing. I always teach my students that their writing should create a visual image for the reader. Most of my students’ writing is very basic and the reader has to make many assumptions because of the lack of description. Some students “get this” while most use this technique one time and then forget to use it again. I like the idea that you should begin with a short description of a noun. Then I would have my students make a connection/association to that object or person in their mind so that they can actually create a picture. Then write down everything they see in that picture. This teaches descriptive language. I think this has to be taught over and over again in order for students to continually create visual images in their written expression. Students would be reminded to write about the most important, exciting and unusual aspects. Their words should make the picture come alive for all that read their piece. Patricia Polacco is an excellent author to use for this purpose. Any and all of her books are extremely descriptive. My students love listening to Thank you, Mr. Falker.
Chapter 6
ReplyDeleteFor establishing flow, rhythm and cadence I would have students read their pieces aloud into a microphone and tape their voices. Then they could play the recording back to see if their writing has fluency and energy.
I would focus on varying sentence length and structure. Some of my students write a string of very simple sentences. When you reread their piece, their writing seems very choppy and not fluid. Varying sentence length creates a much smoother piece. An extremely long sentence, or a run-on, can also be difficult to understand. I think it’s also crucial to vary the beginning word of each sentence. If a few sentences, in a row, begin with the same word, the piece lacks originality. I like the exercise where students choose one piece of writing and draw boxes around each sentence. It shows them if there are too many short, simple sentences. If the size of the boxes vary, their pieces probably are much better. In addition, they can see if the vary the beginning words of each sentence.
For constructing sentences that enhance meaning I would try “Pass It On.” I would model a very short sentence and then pass that sentence on to the next student. That student would be responsible for beginning the next sentence with the last word from my sentence. We would continue this process until the story was completed. This technique has a nice pattern/rhythm/flow.
I would use the book, Hatchet, to show excellent writing. Gary Paulssen uses one word sentences which are extremely powerful and have such importance to the plot of the story. These short sentences have rhythm and great meaning for the reader.
Marsha, great choice of books to use. Fireflies can be used to model many of the traits as well as memoir. You picked some fun activities to help build their sentence fluency. These 2 traits are more concrete than some of the others. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteCheryl, it's so true that students forget to use many of these strategies after they have learned them. I think your students would have fun with the activities you selected for these 2 traits. I, too, like the idea of having them box out their sentences. Great choice of books, too. Thanks for sharing.
Chapter 5 -I would like to focus on exact language. I agree that the verb is a most powerful part of speech! The use of active verbs helps to create strong, precise writing. Practicing turning passive into active verbs is a great activity and allows students to see for themselves which voice yields more powerful communication. I would use the idea to write a business memo and evaluate which voice would achieve better results. I like the idea of sharing excerpts from The Old Man and the Sea to model the power of precise, active verbs.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 - Liz,
ReplyDeleteThank you for including the handout on Blood & Gore Like You've Never Seen. Sounds like a great nonfiction model for exact language. I love the idea of embedding difficult scientific terminology in a voice-filled text.Using accurate, specific scientific terms helps build student content-area vocabulary. Nice to see scientific information used in exciting ways.
Chapter 5 -Marsha,
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me about Fireflies' beautiful language and its suitability as a model of excellent word choice. I'll revisit it.
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteWord Choice- Striking Language
I would like to spend more time on this. Students writings are often dry and non descriptive. I often tell them to close their eyes and try to picture what the author is describing. If they have trouble then the writer needs to add more description. The picture book I would use is Hello Ocean. The author uses wonderful words to describe things found at the beach. Many students are afraid to take risks. laurie
Laurie:
ReplyDeleteThat book would be terrific because students can make connections. The ocean brings very vivid memories back to my mind. I think that teachers will always struggle to get students to write more descriptively. We model wonderful literature, but when it comes time for them to perform, they take the easy way out and write very simple pieces.
Pat:
ReplyDeleteYour exercise to strengthen the use of exact language sounds terrific. Modeling with books is great. I tend to use mostly picture books, because I can finish the book in one period and have great discussions. Building students' vocabulary is an ongoing task. They learn the language, but tend not to incorporate these more powerful words in their own writing.
Pat,
ReplyDeleteI agree that strong verbs enhance writing. I am working on having the children circle some verbs in their piece and then substituting "vivid verbs" in place of the ordinary boring ones. Today I also had the children revisit their writing and add at least 3 short sentences. When they shared what they wrote, those short sentences really made a difference!
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteNatural Language
This is important for my students because sounding authentic in writing is challenging. When my older students look up words in a bilingual dictionary their writing often sounds awkward. Many of my students also have a limited vocabulary so the idea of a personal top ten list of words would be great. Changing them weekly would also enhance their vocabulary. The lists would be a handy reference for the students to use in ESL and in their classrooms. I love Patricia Polocco books and use them often with my students.
Chapter 6 For assisting students to develop flow, rhythm, and cadence, I would use the activity "I've Got Rhythm". Reading aloud great models of natural sounding language that create natural rhythm seems to me to be the way to go. The suggestion to use Koala Lou by Mem Fox is one that I agree with.
ReplyDeleteAnd to help with varying sentence length and structure, I would ask students to see if ending more of their sentences with nouns creates more effective sentences. And lastly, for constructiong sentences that enhance meaning, I would choose the activity "Long and Short to Make It Interesting". I like the idea of having students experimenting with varying their sentence lengths to see for themselves whether or not it adds energy to their writing. I liked the handout Liz gave us related to sentence fluency and so I went to my library to get a copy of Black Cat. It was a great text to model sentence fluency and it gets my vote as the book to use to help teach this trait. Another great book for sentence fluency is When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant. A gem.
Chapter 5 I think that I would like to spend more time on the Beautiful language. For the students that are on my caseload I think the incorporation of the audio component would be very beneficial. They could start to tune in to the beautiful words that they could use in place of their vague or over used words. The focus lesson would be a combination of Yummy words where the generation of words could be a group effort . Afterward I would move into the expanding small phrases to bigger ones. I used to do this with my students but as the groups chnged I forgot about this technique. It was good to be reminded of this technique. The Legend of the Bluebonnet would be a story that I would use.
ReplyDeletechapter 6 For establishing flow and rhythm I have used both the tongue twister and what I call the Whisper phone. Varying sentence length I will be trying the slinky exercise. It gives such a great visual. For constructing sentences that enhance meaning i would try the pass it on exercise.
One of the book selections i would consider is Heartland or the wonderful happens.
I love learning about all the other book that everyone is discussing. this gives me new titles to look at and discuss.
Marsha,
ReplyDeleteI use an activity similar to yours to develop beautiful language. I read it in Georgia Heard's The Revision Toolbox. Children are given a general sentence such as: The beach was fun. and they need to expand on it by sharing everything about the beach to show how it was fun. It's called "cracking it open." Once they get the hang of it they do amazing writing with all kinds of descriptive language. For my students who can begin to give more details, it's the first step that leads to curiosity and motivation to finding more vivid, powerful vocabulary.
Pat, I agree verbs can do so much to enhance writing. I think it's an easy technique to teach kids. The lesson on Blood and Gore are from the Trait Crate for 5th grade. There are crates for Grades 3 through 5 or 6. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteLaurie, having them picture what the author is saying is a great strategy. It goes back to the comprehension skill of picturing. I don't know that book -- sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
Lisa, I think PP is a great choice to model natural language. Great choice for you to focus on with your students. Thanks for sharing.
Nancy,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of expanding on the beach ~ this is a topic all the children can relate to. I can't wait to try it in class. Often the children (and I) are amazed at what they can do when given some guidance.
As with many of the others, I, too, would want to focus on 'beautiful language'. Word choice is so difficult for my students all the time- focusing on using more interesting and 'exciting' words would greatly assist them. Brainstorming ideas is very helpful- it's so hard for them to try to come up with things individually. I would love to have word lists all over the place. I loved the way the author had word strips all over her 'window-less' classroom. What a great aid for daydreamers! If the students are going to daydream and look around the room, they might as well be looking at something productive!! It also demonstrates the strategy of 'reading the room' that we try to instill in the younger children.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking through some old picture books that I actually used to read to my own children, I came across "the Frog Princess" retold by J. Patrick Lewis. The illustrations are gorgeous, and there are some nice word choices. Many of the books that the others mentioned sound like great ones- I'd like to start expanding my library!
Caroline,
ReplyDeleteI used to do the 'expanding sentences' too. I think we picked that up from the Windward writing program. For our students, we were much more concrete in helping them expand the sentence 'kernel' by having them add words that would answer 'when', 'how', etc. Sometimes our kids need the extra 'clue' in order to figure out what to add to expand the sentence.
I loved reading these two chapters because I spend a lot of time teaching both traits. However, I would like to spend more time teaching beautiful language. I don’t spend as much time teaching this as I could because I find it uses a lot oof adjectives, and I find it is better to teach kids to use “exact language” and the other language traits described in this chapter to really paint a picture in their reader’s mind.
ReplyDeleteGood writers use verbs and exact language. They don’t go on and on with adjectives. I agree with you Pat, verbs are the most important part of speech to use in writing. I tell the children they "make their nouns dance," and create a movie in their reader's mind. They create the action in the writing. However, descriptive writing has its place, doesn’t it? I would really teach into this while the students might be writing about their favorite place or thing. We read the War With Grandpa, and in this book the main character, Peter describes his room, the children can write about their favorite place, which could be there room. They might also want to write about their favorite memory. I would model this word choice trait using Patricia Machalan’s All The Places to Love, The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow or perhaps My Mamma had a Dancing Heart (favorite memory) by Libba Moore Gray. I would use the lessons she suggests using in chapter 5. I love the idea of modeling for the children to write it like YOU see the thing not how EVERYBODY sees it! These books model that idea beautifully, and this helps the children’s writing have voice, meaning, passion, and make it sound authentic!!!!
Cynthia Rylant’s book, When I was Young In the Mountains is another book I might use to model beautiful language because like the others she paints a picture of things she remembers and describes them each through her experience. In all these books the authors find a new way of describing things we see everyday! it would be fun to use three “mentor authors” and compare and contrast how they desribe the same object each so differently. For example, you could take three descriptive pieces all about the same object (clouds, for example) and examine how different authors describe them in different ways but they all paint a beautiful picture in the readers’ mind. To follow up on last week’s lessons on voice, It’s good to give student’s opportunities to experiment sharing how they view a flower, cloud....to notice things that others my not. Examining and being exact with words is paramount in being a great writer and that’s one reason I love teaching word choice so much!!!
Chapter 6
Fluency is also so important. I love to use Penny Coleman’s book, “Coffins, Corpses, and Crypts to model how to take the reader from one idea into a new idea when writing nonfiction pieces. First, we study both concluding sentences and how they lead into catchy topic sentences of the following paragraph. Then the students try to do the same in their own nonfiction writing. I like to give them ample time to study how a genre of writing “sounds,” too. Then they try to imitate that “sound” in their own writing.
I especially love the idea of drawing boxes around sentences to vary sentence length! What a great way for children to “see” sentence fluency!
My favorite idea was to give the students text without punctuation and have them punctuate it! I thought what the child stated about why Coman wrote and punctuated his text the way she did sums up the power of punctuation beautifully. I love the idea of examining two sentences with the same words but with different punctuation, and asking students which one is more effective and WHY it is more effective. This is yet another way of understanding how even punctuation and sentence structure impacts meaning! One book I like to use to help understand how commas influence meaning in sentences is Eats, Leaves, Shoots. The kids get a hoot out of seeing how punctuation DOES make a huge difference in their writing!!!
BTW, I love the book Fireflies, Marsha! I love to use it to help kids describe the light, setting of their pieces. I also love to use it to model a good conclusion for a memoir....where the writer tells the "so what?" factor of their memoir, i.e. the meaning, lesson, theme of their piece!
Chapter 6 Sentence Fluency
ReplyDeleteSentence fluency is difficult for students. Many of their pieces are choppy and sometimes they jump all over. I would partner the students up. One student would read the other students work out loud. They will discuss after they read their piece. Hearing your writing aloud will help the students hear their piece. I often do this myself and it is a great help. The book I would use for sentence fluency would be Shel Silverstein’s poems. I read one every morning to my class. Poems show wonderful sentence fluency.
Cheryl, I love the idea with a tape recorder. Having students listen to their own work is a great idea. Laurie
ReplyDeleteLaurie,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of using poetry for sentence fluency. Shel Silverstein's poems are great. The Homework Machine is one of my favorite poems. The kids really enjoy and chuckle through out the poem. It shows great sentence fluency and humor.
Michelle
Laurie,
ReplyDeleteHello Ocean is a great book with beautiful language. It really helps students to visualize being at the beach. It is a great way to model for students how to use more descriptive language.
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteMy students have the most difficulty with details and expansding language. They tend to use the same words over and over again when writing. Using "Beautiful Language" is the category that needs the most work. I like the idea of using art supplies (Shaping Up)and brainstorming ideas to paint or draw what they think the words should look like. I've also used postcards of landscapes, structures, nature etc. to elicit language other than "nice" or "good". I love the book Black Beauty because it has such descriptive and beautiful languaage. I have an abridged version which has illustrations as well as photos from the actual time helping the story come to life!!
Chapter 6
For establishing flow rhythm and cadence I like to use choral reading. Poetry works very well with this activity. A great book to enhance this activity is Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin By Lloyd Moss. Sentence stretching is a great activity to use for varying sentence structure and length and helps to teach parts of speech at the same time!!! I like the activity "Which is Better" to teach constructing sentences that enhance meaning. It's a way to show them how to expand their work and create a mood.
Caroline---I agree that an audio component would benefit our students, much like books on tape. Even the "typical" studnet can benefit from the multisensory approach.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5: Word Choice
ReplyDeleteI have had students each year try to improve their writing by choosing vocabulary they think is more sophisticated when in fact, it's incorrect so I want to try new strategies to help them understand "words should never be used carelessly or for effect; but instead, honestly, correctly, and naturally. Most often, these are youngsters who are capable, bright, and motivated; but till now, I haven't been able to come up with lessons to help them understand what they are doing and why it's destroying otherwise solid pieces of writing. I want to deal with Exact Language to help writers from becoming "word drunk!" I think the strategies using The Game of Connotations can really highlight the problems in their writing and make them more willing to revise. Writing the same piece from different perspectives helps writers see how important it is to use the "exact" word and how there are slight nuances that separate words so that looking it up in the dictionary or thesaurus doesn't mean they are interchangeable.
The picture book I love and read aloud each year, Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady retold by Selina Hastings (with incredible illustrations by Juan Wijngaard) is a perfect book to teach word choice. Every sentence is carefully crafted to tell the story of King Arthur who requires the help of a pitiably ugly monster to save his life; in return he must promise to have one of his knight's marry her. Every word is carefully chosen painting with words the details of each character and the events. My student are mesmerized. Now I have a great mini-lesson to follow-up that should offer them a chance to discuss the connotations since the Loathly Lady is really a beautiful princess after the spell is broken.
Chapter 6: Sentence Fluency
Establishing Flow, Rhythm, and Cadence obviously requires the writer to read their words out loud. I read aloud a lot both picture books and former 6th graders' work. I tried to be as dramatic as possible to help them see the drama in language- pausing for necessary stretches to give real meaning to ideas. I love using Fleishman's Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices so students get to practice.
I love the visual activity, Picture Your Sentence to help students Vary Sentence Length and Structure since it's an immediate and concrete method to identify a student's need to use long and short sentences successfully. I also like the rearranging technique described in Off to a Good Start to rearrange parts of the sentence.
I would spend a lot of time Constructing Sentences that Enhance Meaning. Using Punctuation for Emphasis is really helpful since they need to see how punctuation can help readers get the best reading. I tell them it's like the signs on the road when you're driving a car. I thought two other activities would be fun and meaningful, Long and Short to Make it Interesting and Pass it On. They require very little time and explanation but could really show writers immediate improvement. A book I use, which highlights fluency of language is Mildred Taylor's Song of the Trees. She has written several short memories of the story her father told of growing up African American in the South. They all have powerful language, which flow as if they were poetry. Even the dialogue is amazing. I read many of these aloud since they are so beautifully crafted. Song of the Trees is so lyrical that I teach them found poetry by transferring poetic passages into poems. They literally recreate the words with line breaks and stanzas so they can see how rhythmic and unique each word on every line is. They appreciate the original so much more as a model of fluency.
Amy,
ReplyDeletethis if my third attempt to respond to you but each time I do, there's a problem posting it. I'll try again! I love Cynthia Rylant too and she's written novels for older readers. The one I love for its authentic language, poetic and fluent structure is A Blue-Eyed Daisy. It's the memoir of her own family and I love to read it a loud since the students listen with bated breath and appreciate every word. I find more and more the importance and value in reading aloud to model good writing. it says more than I can do teaching!
Debbie, I think the idea of the word lists is a wonderful. Students quickly learn to refer to these when in search of a word. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAmy -- I love your choices of books -- I have used all three of them for modeling reading and writing strategies. What a great idea of telling the kids the verbs make their nouns dance. Thanks for sharing.
Laurie -- poetry is a great way to model fluency. I like the idea of having a parnter read their work. Thanks for sharing.
Lynn -- the Black Beauty abridged version sounds great for building word choice. It's great that some of these traits help develop speech and vocabulary as well. Thanks for sharing.
lynn, I also love the idae of using art supplies for beautiful language. I have many students in my class that are wonderful artists and I think they would really benefit from this activity. Also it might help other students visually. Laurie
ReplyDeleteFor establishing flow, rhythm, and cadence, I would choose ‘I’ve Got Rhythm”. I agree that hearing good models of language builds fluency. Since my students struggle with fluency, modeling is an excellent way for them to learn. Listening to good writing allows my students to hear the flow of English and learn new vocabulary words as well. As is suggested, Mem Fox books are great for this type of activity.
ReplyDelete“End with a Noun and Run-ons” are great activities for varying sentence length and structure. The mechanics of writing is very difficult for my students. Sentence structure is something with which they really struggle. The end with a noun activity would be useful because it would help teach students the parts of speech and where they fit in sentences. Some other languages put verbs, adjectives, and nouns in different locations within sentences so understanding the placement of words is crucial. “Run-ons” is also a great activity because my students often use them in their writing because they have difficulty with sentence structure.
The “Which is Better” activity is great for constructing sentences that enhance meaning. As I stated before, modeling is crucial in order for my students to understand the flow of English. Often, they do not notice or hear when sentence structure is incorrect. They have great difficulty with the length of sentences. Either all simple sentences are used or they write an entire paragraph with only one period. Hearing the same sentence twice would enable my students to hear how to take simple sentences and turn them into complex and compound sentences. It would also emphasize the use of connecting words- something with which they have difficulty.
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteMarsha-I agree with you about beautiful language. Students often put overused words in their writing over and over. They need to expand their vocabulary and synonyms. Some students write the same way that they speak. They need to realize the difference between the language of writing and speaking.
Chapter 6: For 'Establishing flow, rhythm, and Cadence' I would try the 'Music to our Ears' activity. I love the idea of taking away any print 'hang ups' and just letting the kids listen to music. They don't have to worry about decoding anything, they can 'hear' the words through music. It's a great way for them to hear how a 'story' can grow, change, and flow through music. Then, they can try to transfer this idea into a writing piece. I would probably do the first writing as a group piece, to take some of the mystery out of it. Then, using one of the many great books suggested, they could listen to a story and try one on their own.
ReplyDeleteFor 'Varying sentence length and structure', I liked several of the activities. I loved the 'Slinky City'- anything multi-sensory for my kids is great! It really shows them with a great manipulative just how long or short a sentence really is. My students are also notorious for writing a '3 page sentence'so I would love doing the 'Run-ons' activity. The students constantly get so carried away with their ideas, that the conventions of writing totally go out the window!! I like them to get their ideas down first, but then they really need to go back and see how many good sentences they can actually make. I would probably give them a sample first- it might be hard for them to recognize the faults in their own pieces- to them it was great the first time! I also like the 'Sentences and fragment Bee'. My students still need to recognize that a full sentence can consist of only 2 or 3 words. This would be a great first step in having them vary their sentence length. 'Constructing sentences that enhance meaning' would be tricky for my kids. As I was reading that part, I found lessons that I liked, but knew they would be too hard for my 3rd graders. They are still at a more immature writing level. One activity they could probably benefit from was 'Which was Better'. If given a sample similar to the one in the chapter (pg. 207), they could clearly see that combining simple sentences into one 'better' one would enhance their writing.
Amy,
ReplyDeleteI love your idea about 'mentoring' authors. What a neat thing for students to see how authors use their own language to describe similar things! It would be interesting to try to find somewhat 'nameless' descriptions so the students could try to 'guess' what was being described.
Caroline,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that it's great to get so many book suggestions! Working with students the way we do- only a 30 or 60 minute time period- often makes reading good literature difficult. It would take close to a whole period just to get through a book! But I think it's great to find out what's out there and broaden our horizons. I'm planning on incorporating more read alouds into my group time!
Thanks to all for these great suggestions!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI would like to spend more time teaching striking language. Many of my students have trouble using descriptive language, which makes their writing seem very simplistic. They need to be reminded to use these descriptive words. During our personal narrative piece, we focused on descriptive language. On their planning page there was a separate space for descriptive words. This was the first thing they filled in. I had them make a list of words they associated with their “topic”. This really helped them remember to use their descriptive words when writing their draft.
ReplyDeleteOwl Moon is a great book to read and has some nice descriptive language.
Lynn- I love the idea of using art for expanding language. I have a student now who has a very difficult time writing, but yet her art pieces are amazing and filled with details and expression. We just had a project where I incorporated art into it and hers was beautiful.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5
ReplyDeleteI would like to spend more time teaching Beautiful Language. My students have extreme difficulties when it comes to writing more than basic sentences. I thought the starter list of Voice Descriptors on p.130 was a great resource. The activity I would like to try is Act It Out. This would be a great activity for my students. The suggestion to distribute a list of the voice descriptors to every student to reference during the game is a great modification that would help my students be successful.
The picture book I would use to model beautiful language is When I Was Young in the Moutains by Cynthia Rylant. This book has many examples of beautiful language. Rylant’s writing is extremely detailed and graphic. Her writing flows beautifully coupled with the illustrations, children just love listening to and reading Rylant’s creations.
Chapter 6
An activity that is a great way to model how to establish flow is the activity from your handout. It uses The Important Book by Margaret Wise. It is repitive and easy for students to follow its pattern. For a varying sentences activity I would choose Off to a Great Start. To help students get started they are provided sentence starter strips. An activity for constructing sentences that enhance meaning is Pass It On. The activity has students link words from sentence to sentence to help them stay on topic.
The picture book I would use to model sentence fluency is Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Martin. In addition, to being a spectacular book, actually two books in one, this book’s sentence variety is illustrated throughout the story. This is one of my favorite books because, in addition to the incredible writing style, the story is extremely heart-warming.
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteI find word choice crucial in writing. Finding the "right" word can transform a piece of writing from ordinary to outstanding. I would like to spend more time teaching Striking Language in my class. Whenever I travel, I purchase postcards. Having been to over 25 countries and all 50 states, my collection is large. I find giving students a random postcard and having them write to someone they know based on their card is a wonderful way for them to write descriptively. Due to the lack of room on the card, students need to choose their words carefully and make sure they are able to describe their card vividly.
I find the Hatchet by Gary Paulsen to have incredible examples of "Striking Language." Especially the first few pages when Paulsen describes the plane crash.
Chapter 6
ReplyDeleteFor establishing flow and rhythm I find working with tongue twisters a good way to focus on language sounds. Students really enjoy writing their own and having the entire class recite them. As for varying sentence length and structure I love the end with a noun idea. It helps reinforce parts of speech and appropriate sentence structure. For enhanced meaning the lean and mean activity will be useful. Kids (and many adults) tend to be wordy in their writing. Therefore this activity will help students become aware that sometimes less is more!
Amy- I also like giving students a piece of writing without punctuation. My students often do not realize the importance of it. Many of them also tend to write sentences that take up half a page. It's a good experience for them to read someone else's writing so that they can understand how confusing writing can be without punctuation. This exercise also gives them a sense of how to punctuate.
ReplyDeleteOne category I would like to spend more time on in chapter 5 is Exact Language because it makes students' writing much more interesting to read and keeps the reader's attention. I liked the focus lesson The Game of Connotations where a poem is shared and students have to add to the poem using their own connotations. I would also have them experiment writing a story from two different points of view (or a fairy tale).
ReplyDeleteOne picture book I could use to model Word Choice is A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon, one of my favorite books.
For flow, rhythm, and cadence I would use the choral reading activity. I would find poems for groups to read aloud together so that they can plan where to breathe, stop and start, and raise and lower their voices. For varying sentence length and structure, I liked the slinky activity where students stretch their slinky to match the length of each sentence. This is such a great visual tool that I feel would really help students to see the length of sentences. For constructing sentences that enhance meaning, I would use the long and short activity, where students practice building suspense in a piece by starting with a long, scene-setting sentence followed by a few short sentences.
One picture book I just used to model sentence fluency in 6th grade is Joyful Noise: Poems for 2 Voices. Partners could practice these together.
Establishing flow, rhythm, and cadence-
ReplyDeleteI would like to try Reading Aloud to Yourself. I currently encourage my students to read their stories to a classmate. Some feel comfortable, while others feel self-conscious. I thought using a “fluency phone” would be a fun and great way to hear themselves and eliminate any self-conscious feelings
Varying sentence length and structure
I thought Off to a Good start sounded like a great activity. Many of my students have difficulty understanding how to begin sentences in different ways. I always encourage them to highlight and change the beginning word of a sentence if it is used more than once in a paragraph. This activity will help them come up with new and creative ways to begin a sentence.
Constructing sentences that enhance meaning
I would like to try the Pass it on activity. I think my students would really enjoy this activity. They love to work in groups and this activity is challenging yet seems like a game. I like the idea of keeping it short, this way they can focus and concentrate on creating a strong sentence(without rushing to get it over with).
The Van Gogh Café is a great book to model sentence fluency