WELCOME TO DAY 4

QUICK WRITE In your opinion, what living thing do you consider to be the best, most useful model for DARPA’s next robot? Give evidence from your reading to support your reasoning in your essay.

Foundational Skills

Handwriting

BASED ON RESEARCH BY STEVE GRAHAM AND BRUCE SADDLER Sentence Combining

“In the array of skills a writer must use effectively, one of the most important is the ability to construct sentences.” Bruce Saddler

“As a curriculum supplement, sentence combining provides mindful practice in manipulating and rewriting basic phrases or clauses into more varied and syntactically mature forms.” -Bruce Saddler Students can combine kernel sentences. My cat is lazy. My cat is old. My cat is old and lazy. Students can also decompose sentences that are overly complex or ambiguous.

Three theoretical principles support sentence combining practice: 1. Writers need instruction in formulating a concept of what a written sentence is and the syntactical options that are possible when producing a sentence.

2. Once the sentence formation and reformation process becomes more familiar through sustained, systematic practice, the overall cognitive strain a writer experiences while writing is reduced, allowing attention to shift to other writing tasks.

3. Gains in syntactical fluency, the ability to produce a variety of sentences, lead to quality writing by making a composition more enjoyable to read.

The goal “Instead of constructing longer sentences, the value of sentence combining may reside in making sentences and whole discourse better through employing a variety of syntactical forms-the goal being clarity of thought instead of complexity.” Bruce Saddler

Example of Sentence Combining: The boys were working. The girls were working. (and) The boys and girls were working.

Combine these into one sentence The fish were blue. The fish were small. The fish were in a tank. The fish were swimming. They were in a group.

Teach Specific Techniques 1. Inserting adjectives and adverbs -The teacher walked down the hall. -The teacher walked quickly. The teacher walked quickly down the hall. -The student worked on his writing. -The student was quiet. The quiet student worked on his writing.

2. Producing compound subjects and objects -Kelly wanted to play basketball. -Joseph wanted to play basketball. Kelly and Joseph wanted to play basketball. -Chloe wanted a balloon. -Chloe wanted some bubbles. Chloe wanted a balloon and bubbles.

3. Producing compound sentences with and and but -Trevor wanted to play lacrosse. -Ty wanted to play soccer. (but) Trevor wanted to play lacrosse, but Ty wanted to play soccer.

4. Producing possessive nouns -I love that car. -It is Susan’s. I love Susan’s car.

5. Producing sentences with adverbial clauses using connecting words (because, after, until, and when) -I went to the grocery store. -I needed milk. (because) I went to the grocery store because I needed milk.

6. Producing sentences with relative clauses -The student will be first in line. -The student is closest to the door. The student who is closest to the door will be first in line.

Instructional Method  1. Show how to do it, and establish why it is important.  (TEACH)  2. Provide students with assistance until they can apply the skill correctly and indpendently.  (GUIDED PRACTICE)  3. Have all students to apply the skill when they write.  (APPLY) Doing this once is not enough!

Improvement  Teachers who have taught sentence combining have found improvement in punctuation AND quality of writing.  Took time and effort  Kept sessions short (10-15 mins)  Part of revision instruction  Took revision beyond editing

Resources Free archived presentation: Saddler, Bruce. "Best Practices in Sentence Construction Skills. Best Practices in Writing Instruction. 2nd Edition. New York: Guilford Press, Saddler, B., & Preschern J. (2007). Improving sentence writing ability through sentence combining practice. Teaching Exceptional Children, 39(3), Available for free from: files/sentence%20combining.pdf

REVISION “Teachers have the greatest opportunity to teach students about good writing when students evaluate and change what they have already written.” -Charles A. MacArthur

REVISION VS. EDITING Revising is changing to make your writing better. Editing is correcting errors such as spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes.

REVISION re=again vision = to see to see your work again

REVISION *Revision can happen during writing and after completing a draft. * Teachers find it difficult to get students to go beyond editing for errors. *Ideas learned during revision should carry over to other pieces of writing.

When you Revise You can ADD*SUBTRACT*MOVE*CHANGE

Questions you can ask when revising? Does everything make sense? Have I expressed myself well? Have I chosen the best words? Do I have enough interesting and important details? Have I reached my goal for this genre?

Research on Revision The next few slides contain findings from existing research on several instructional approaches or methods. Why is this important? We can learn from research and apply the best methods in our classrooms!

Research on REVISION INSTRUCTION TEACHER FEEDBACK -Most common is for teacher to provide feedback and to ask students to revise. -Written feedback not very effective. -More effective to conference with students about their writing.

Research on REVISION INSTRUCTION Critical Reading -Students who critically read a piece and can identify comprehension problems in writing become better at revising.

Research on REVISION INSTRUCTION Word Processing -Using a word processor by itself doesn’t improve revision

Research on REVISION INSTRUCTION Strategy Instruction -Teaching students how to self-evaluate using specific criteria. -Giving students steps to use in revising specific genre of writing -Instruction in revision can lead to improved revision and quality of writing

Research on REVISION INSTRUCTION PEER REVISION -Peer feedback can be more frequent and immediate than a teacher can provide. -Students need training in order to make peer revision effective. -Peer revision should be integrated into writing instruction and evaluation. -Students learn from giving AND receiving feedback.

Example Peer Revision Strategy 1. Listen while the author reads the paper. 2. Tell what the paper was about and what you liked about it. 3. Read the story (or listen to it again) and ask the evaluation questions. (Insert specific questions here) 4. Discuss the evaluation and ways to make the paper better. 5. Author makes changes.

How do we get kids to go beyond the editing errors? How can we get students to go beyond the first draft? Turn and Talk

Charles A. MacArthur says, “ It is easy and time-efficient to give students the opportunity to apply evaluation rubrics to papers written by unknown peers, and it helps them to improve their own papers. This experience could be an effective way to train students for actual peer review.”

EDITING

Let’s Take a Look at our Language Standards First open up to the language anchor standards We will be looking specifically at standards 1-3