Paragraphing...BACKWARDS: A Five Day Lesson Plan

     I am very proud of my students and the volume of writing they are now able to produce in a single setting. Most of them can routinely write more than one full page.  But with this dramatic increase in volume often comes a lack of punctuation.  In addition as the length of students' stories increases, the skill of paragraphing becomes even more important.
     Most resources about paragraphing are instruction before students begin writing.  There are all sorts of graphic organizers and hamburger diagrams.  I decided to tackle paragraphing after students have written.  By teaching about paragraphing after writing, I can also tackle issues like elaboration and end punctuation, which are still important skills that students lack.
     For the first paragraphing lesson, I copied some pages from the book we are currently reading.  I tell the students the main reasons for paragraphing:  changes in speaker, time, and place.  I used Whole Brain Teaching techniques with pair teaching and gestures to help students remember the reasons for paragraphing.  Using the text selection and highlighters (kids love those), I had my students highlight the three reasons for paragraphing in three different colors.  They did this in pairs. 
     The next day, I gave students a piece of writing I wrote without paragraphs.  Again in pairs, students discussed where the paragraphs should be.  As a class we shared our ideas, making sure to justify our conclusions. 
     On Day #3 it was time for students to begin revising their own writing.  I used Lucy Calkins "box" technique.  In this technique, students draw a box with colored markers around their paragraphs.  Students worked with pairs.  Once students make boxes around their paragraphs, I asked them to count the number of sentences in each box.  For their assignment during Writing Workshop, students need to add some detail sentences to any paragraph that has less than four sentences.  Since students write on every other line in their daybooks, it is relatively easy to add detail sentences.  I collected the daybooks and sorted students by those who were struggling with paragraphing and elaboration and those that were not. 
     The following day, I met with the students who were struggling the most for extra assistance.
     On the final day of the week, I had students choose a section of text and rewrite it for evaluation.  They had to take at least two consecutive paragraphs and rewrite them.  I went over the assessment rubric prior to the assessment.  Students had to be able to show at least two paragraphs of a minimum of four sentences each, correctly punctuated. 

Adventures in Literacy

We are nearing the end of the first month of school.  I have to rank this class as one of the most challenging of my career.  We are moving forward, but at a slower pace than I am accustomed to. 
     During Daily Five we are still working on building stamina.  Many students still just get up to get more books in the middle of it or talk to each other.  Most of that talking is innocent and impulsive, but the fact that they are still doing it shows that they are still working on stamina.  Normally I would be starting reading groups next week.  I still will, but many students will also begin the week with assigned seats that put them where I can see them and more than a single arms length from others (which is what we typically do).  This is the first step I take with students who are not building stamina.  After a week, they can have their choice back.  Make poor choices again and there are no more choices of where to sit.  This is how the CAFE Menu looked half way through individual reading inventories.  The "thumbs up" on the black paper represent the goals of each student.

      After a rough start (again-building stamina), Writing is going well.  I have seen some real improvement already using Lucy Calkins Units of Study.  Her techniques are simple enough that they are easy for students to implement.  They are very concrete as well.  This is how our Writer's Block looks as we are transitioning to from stamina lessons to craft lesssons-

There are lots of resources for students who need ideas to write about, including laminated pages from a costume catalog.

I also saw these descriptors for the four levels I used for Writing.  I thought I would add them to the display: Keep "TRI"- ing, Coming A-"ROUND", "SQUARE" Deal, and Love It!

     In the front of the room I added the class rules (below the board) and a cursive alphabet (above the board.

Week 2 Update: I Love Math

     Those of you that know me well know my passion for differentiated groupings that I call "I Love Math" groups.  I Love Math is a structure  that divides the class into a high, average, and low group and cycles those groups through three different stations.  Once the students get the rotations (which are always in the same order no matter what group the child starts with), things run like clockwork.  In the past I have always had an aide, Title One teacher, or special education teacher in my room to help ensure things go smoothly.  That way two of the groups have adult supervision.
     This year, for the first time, our grade has been required to level for Math.  Since I was in the fifth grade at the time, I could not attend the meetings where they assigned teachers to the different levels.  I have one of the average groups.  Two of our classes (mine and the high group) do not have a support person in the classroom for Math.  The other six specialist are divided among the bottom three classes.  This is my first year trying I Love Math groups by myself.  I knew it would be a real test of the structure that I love so much.  If I can do it alone, then there is hope for other teachers who are solo practitioners.  And yes, even a leveled Math group has enough differences in it to warrant differentiated instruction.
     First of I decided that I needed to have I Love Math groups a lot more often.  In the past I have done them regularly (once or twice a week), but only as needed. I know that the more I do them, the better the students get at it.  I decided that this year I would have a whole class lesson on Monday which would end with an ungraded pre-test.  This would be used to create differentiated groups Tuesday through Thursday.  Friday will be another whole class lesson and post-test.
     I also knew that I needed to use technology to help me keep track of the progress of my students in the same way that another person used to  do.  Luckily I found Ten Marks, a free site where I can assign specific skill lessons for my students. 
     After one week of following this plan the results have been fairly good.  Technology has been the biggest challenge.  Our wireless internet is not always reliable and the students are not used to logging in to the computers and finding websites in a timely manner.  I hope that time and experience will help the students complete this part of the task more quickly and easily.  If not, I may have to alter the activities or the order.  I wish I had enough computers for all of the students to start on them and then move to other activities, but the most I can get are 8.
     Great ideas are worth the time it takes to make them successful.  I'm up for the challenge!