Here's the plan I came up with and plan to put into practice this school year. The first big writing assignment is due on Tuesday--a summary of an assigned portion of the novel, Night, that has three parts: an introduction, the actual summarization of the assigned portion of the book and an analysis of the themes that are apparent in that particular section.
I'd like to invite input from parents, students, concerned citizens about improving the writing skills of my students. Please feel free to comment, share ideas or concerns you might have. Writing is a reflection of how people think; I want my students to prove that they are mature, creative, insightful young men and women through their writing. It's much more than simply passing the OGT; it's giving them writing skills that will carry them through college and a career; skills that will allow them to express themselves fully in whatever forum they choose. I admit shamelessly that I'm always looking for students who want to take my journalism class and be a part of the school newspaper, too. Hopefully, this writing plan will help all of us.
Sophomore Writing Instruction
Areas in which weaknesses are seen:
A. not
enough text generated for prompt
B. lack
of organization
C. lack
of coherence
Possibilities:
A. not
enough text generated for prompt
1. length
expectations fully explained; 1 page minimum
2. Leading
questions for essay prompts
3. Use
of how/why questions
4. Use
of examples cited from text
5. Use
of primary sources (student interviews) and secondary sources (previously
published material) within student papers
6. Teach
grammar/mechanics that will enable students to write longer, more complex
sentences (phrases/clauses, appositives, adding adverbs and adjectives)
B. lack
of organization
This issue can be as simple as not
using indented paragraphs or as complex as no identifiable intro, body
conclusion, lacking thesis statement, lack of focus, etc.
1. teach
and re-teach paragraph indentation, when to indent and why
2. teach
5-paragraph essay format in grades 9 and 10 as a simple structure for
essays. Advanced students and English in
grades 11 and 12 should focus on more complex essay formats.
3. teach
and re-teach construction and placement of thesis statement
4. teach
and re-teach use of organizational strategies—outlining, graphic organizers,
simple listing of paragraphs and their content
5. Students
are required to show evidence of prewriting with every writing assignment
turned in
C. lack
of coherence
Most difficult issue to address;
writing can lack coherence because of multiple spelling/grammar mistakes,
errors in sentence construction or because words used to construct sentences
simply don’t make sense. These students
may need more intensive intervention.
1. Standardize
grammar instruction for grades 9-12 with specific grammar concepts taught at
each grade level.
2. Re-teaching
basic grammar—parts of speech, e.g.?
3. Sentence
construction—focus on complete sentences, different ways to construct
sentences, finding errors in sentence construction.
D. Additional
thoughts:
1. Students
targeted for reading intervention probably need writing intervention, too. Make writing intervention part of class.
2. Special
Ed. Students are routinely excused from grammar assignments in English
classes—this might not be wise—they are consistently deficient in writing
skills—shouldn’t they be responsible for grammar assignments?
3. Teacher
accountability: required number of
writing assignments per quarter? In all
classes? All teachers should be
deducting points for spelling/grammar errors.
4. Require
rewrites of all writing assignments scoring below 75%.
