One of the weekly activities in our CORE Integrated Literature and Writing is to write a linear recounting the plot of a given section. This activity might seem simple, but it is a simple activity that simultaneously teaches students writing technique and higher order thinking skills.
This student, during Section 1, of My Name is Maria Isabel, captured the essence of the week’s reading perfectly, albeit chaotically. Leaving the ideas in this state would reinforce chaotic communicating. So taking the opportunity to point out errors and asking the student to make a second draft on a separate sheet of paper, would enable the student to learn to polish an idea and participate in the process of writing.
This small activity will teach many obvious writing techniques in one fell swoop:
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Correcting spelling errors
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Using an eraser to keep work tidy
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Keeping capitalization standardized
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Using end marks properly
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Ordering ideas in a linear manner
This particular activity offered a really great opportunity to help the student hear how the third idea—a really significant aspect of the plot—was not making sense:
“They went to the prinsubl and weht to class where names weher names assigned.”
Correcting the misspellings would help:
“The went to the principal and went to class where names were names assigned.”
But the student would need to slow into the act of re-reading to actually catch the fact that “names” was in the sentence twice, making the idea awkward to unpack.
Once the student understood that these ideas really mattered, engaging in the work of refinement was not a chore. Th end result is both meaningful and beautiful. This is the art of becoming a confident and competent writer.
~Kimberly