Posted on November 15, 2009 by
russell07
Recently (meaning last year) I found a way to scaffold my Response to Literature unit so well, in explaining the writing process, that my hardest unit of the year to teach now is narrative. Though I am making progress there, I would like to share some information about my success in the other two areas.
Instead of teaching the entire essay, or even a paragraph, holistically, like we usually do, I made it into a breakdown. I took the individual items, the basics, for each of the paragraphs, and I broke the paper into those pieces. Then, I instructed students in how to either create or identify those pieces in their work.
Persuasive paper:
1. Topic
2. Opinion
3. Use those to create a thesis
4. Topic sentence
5. Hook
These are broken down over MANY days of instruction. Then, we take them all and work them into a single paragraph, all together. The students first do this work with me, as guided practice. Then, they do it as work in groups, then they do it independently. Each time I take their work and evaluate their success in that step in order to monitor their progress. What ends up happening is that we take the paragraphs, all of them, and we compile all of the information needed, like mechanical components, and then we piece meal it all together.
It sounds as if it is taking all of the poetry out of the work, but I teach 6th grade English. How much poetry do you find in an 11 year old’s persuasive paper to begin with?
The fact is that I had a 95% turn in rate last year for response to literature. Typically the year’s most hated task. It was an opportunity to think outside of the box, and I believe that was exactly what I did. Feel free to see the attached worksheets, they may shed more light on the subject.
Response to Literature
Persuasive Paper
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