Errors in Writing

Question: What can we do about common errors in writing, the ones we see time and time again?

Answer: Isolate them. If it’s a run-on sentence, isolate it and let the students play with it. If it’s a comma splice, isolate it and let students play with it. If it’s a sentence fragment, isolate it and let the students play with it—and learn how to correct it in several different ways.

Comment: And if it’s a problem with parallel structure, isolate it and let students play with it. If it’s a problem in active/passive voice, isolate it and let students play with it. If it’s a problem with a dangling modifier, isolate it and let the students play with it—sort of like sentence combining. RayS.

Title: “Amplify Errors to Minimize Them.” MS Stewart. Teaching English in the Two-Year College (March 2009), 291-193.

Note: Taking a week or so off. Will rejoin you on Monday, January 2, 2012, with more “oldies but goodies,” ideas in the teaching of English from past journal articles. RayS.

Editors' Pet Peeves

Question: What do editors dislike about articles submitted to their journals?

Quote: “ ... outlines about a half dozen of her frustrations as an editor, ranging from manuscripts that display an unfamiliarity with the journal to poorly proofread documents.” But the item that caught my attention was her fifth point: ‘My own pet peeve is writers who submit manuscripts that fail to cite articles previously published in the [editor’s] journal on the topic.’ ” p. 233,

Comment: FYI. RayS.

Title: “My Pet Fave.” Jeff Sommers, Ed. Teaching English in the Two-Year College.(March 2009), 233.

Thinking About Learning

Question: How can students reflect on what they have learned?

Answer/Quote: “Thomas V. Chan of River Elm Elementary School in Winnipeg, Canada, improves his 6^th grade students’ retention of new material with what he calls Lessonthink. Each of his students has a notebook set aside for Lessonthink. Each Lessonthink begins on a fresh page with the date of the pertinent lesson in the top right corner. A Lessonthink always pertains to the lesson immediately preceding it and consists of a think and writing exercise.”

“Following a lesson, students are asked to think about what they just experienced and to write 3 short paragraphs on What did I learn?..... What did I not understand?.... and How do I feel about the lesson?..... “ p. 125.

Title: “Children Think about What They Learned.” From “Teaching Children to Think,” by Thomas V. Chan, Manitoba Teacher, December 1985, pp. 4-5. Reading Teacher (October 1987), 125.

Comment: You might not provide this opportunity to think about what has been learned with every lesson, but for significant lessons, it could be well worth while. RayS.

Story Structure

Question: What is the structure of most stories?

Answer/Quote: “Most children’s stories have certain key elements in common: (1): major characters, (2) a setting (including both place and time, if time is important to the story), (3) a problem (most stories represent characters’ attempts to solve problems), (4), the main characters’ goal (usually to alleviate the problem), (5) attempts to achieve the goal (usually the story’s major events), and (6), a resolution (usually achieving the goal and solving the problem).”

Quote: “Identifying a story’s key elements and using them as a guide to asking comprehension questions about the story accomplishes four good things:…helps children develop a general framework for stories…. …gives them practice in identifying the main idea of a story, since the problem and its solution are usually the main idea…. Helps children focus on and remember a story’s sequence of events…. helps in identifying cause and effect. Events do not happen in random order, but one leads to or causes the next.” P. 113, 114.

Comment: Key to this framework is the problem. Identify the problem and you identify the main idea of the story. I don’t remember much emphasis on the problem in discussing stories in my teachers’ classes. They seemed to concentrate on the characters, setting and plot. I never thought of the plot as the problem. For what it’s worth. RayS.

Title: “Map a Story’s Framework.” EF Searls. Reading Teacher (October 1987), 113-116.

Writing and Wordless Books

Question: What’s another good exercise to help young students learn the structure of stories?

Answer: Have students turn wordless picture books in to written narratives.

 Title: “Wordless Books and Writing.” Christine Porter. Reading Teacher (October 1987), 113.

Story Frames

Question: How can story frames help young children learn the structure of stories and therefore improve comprehension?

Answer: Examples of story frames:

 Title: ________

In this story the problem starts when _____

After that ______

Next _____

Then _____

The problem is finally solved when _____

The story ends when _____

Title: ________

The problem in this story was ______

This was a problem because ______

The problem is finally solved when _____

In the end, _____

Title: _____

In this story a _____ had a problem. His problem was _____

This was a problem because ______

Then one day a _____ had a good idea. She _____

This solved the problem because ______. In the end, _____.

Title: _____

A little boy made a _____ out of a box.

First, he ______

Next, he _____

Then, he _____

Finally, he _____

In the end, he ______

 Title: “Using Story Frames to Develop Reading Comprehension in a 1^st Grade Classroom.” JT Cudd and LL Roberts. Reading Teacher (October 1987), 74-70.

Handwriting

Question: How should handwriting be taught?

Answer/Quote: “Although there is a school of thought in the U.K. which advocates cursive writing from the beginning, there is no doubt that the great majority of teachers teach print first and then, with students of about 7 or 8 years, progress to cursive writing.”

Quote: “I align myself with those who prefer the two stage policy for the [following] reasons….Print is more legible and corresponds and relates to print in books.” P. 28.

Comment: Should handwriting be taught at all today in the era of keyboards and voice-activated software?

 First, legibility is important I would like to have a penny for every time I have victimized myself by my own illegible handwriting. The amount of time I have spent going back to sources because I can’t read my own handwriting infuriates me. Wasted energy and time.

Second: Writing tests and tests with open-ended questions that do not use computers require handwriting—legible handwriting.

Third: voice activation, like Dictaphones, will never replace excellent writing in standard English. Too much like informal English with repetition, poor word choice, verbosity, etc.

Fourth, if you can’t write legibly in cursive, use print. You can write as quickly in print as you can in cursive. The key is legibility. RayS.

Title: “Handwriting in the United Kingdom.” Peter Smith. Reading Teacher (October 1987), 27-31.