Lytle ISD 17 years LJH = 10 years CLL = 7 years San Antonio Writing Project TC since 2007 Write For Texas Group

 THINK : Why should I try Sentence of the Week in my classroom?  PRACTICE : SOW activity using Integration and Simulation.  REFLECT : What can I do in my classroom in the next week to help my students construct better sentences?

Research shows it’s not working! What about the test? Read and Write! Good Sentences will follow That’s magical thinking! It’s how we learned

 Students need to know what they have to say.  Students need to know how to say it.  The best research happens in the classroom.

Nuts and Bolts  I learned about commas before conjunctions.  I learned that to be a good writer you have to push compound sentences.

 I learned doing about sentences and be very intelligent. And thinking about my own brain. (6 th grade English Language Learner).

 Why do we have to put a conjunction before a word in the middle of the sentence?  Do we have to use a comma in every sentence?  What other techniques can help with writing sentences?  Can you ever make a complex sentence starting with an independent clause?  What was the book about?

 I learned that complex sentences are easy if you think of AAAWWUBBIS.  I liked that learning complex sentences helps beautifully and maturely illustrate a literary work.

First, Integrate with mentor sentences from current texts, or with teacher models. Then, simulate with sentence skill & models and sentence imitation. Finally, integrate new skills into student writing that’s Focused on the Big Idea.

“… so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn’t become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered.” (Riggs, p.9)

 Do you agree or disagree? Justify your thinking.  What would you still like to discover?

 I’d been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.  Only she couldn’t control herself too well, so sometimes we had to tie a rope around her to keep her from floating away!  I was scared of the monsters, but thrilled to imagine my grandfather battling them and surviving to tell the tale.  Everyone lived together in a big house that was protected by a wise old bird, or so the story went.

 Two Independent Clauses(sentences) joined by a coordinating conjunction.  Coordinating Conjunctions are: › FANBOYS For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So Today we are only focusing on the four most commonly used coordinating conjunctions; So, Or, But, and And.

 Write four simple sentences. › 2 sentences about something you would like to learn about or discover › 1 sentence about what you will have to do in order to achieve this new learning or discovery › 1 sentence about something that might keep you from this new learning or discovery. › REMEMBER, SIMPLE Sentences have a subject and a verb. They are not joined together by anything.

 Write a simple sentence about something you would like to discover.  Example: I would like to discover why my husband likes the soak method so much.

 1 sentence about what you will have to do in order to achieve this new learning or discovery  Example: I would have to think like a man to understand my husband’s soak method.

 1 sentence about something that might keep you from this new learning or discovery.  Example: I will never be able to understand how men think.

 Create at least one compound sentence using two of the coordinating conjunctions.  Be ready to justify the conjunction that you used by talking about the relationship that it creates between the two simple sentences.

Take ten minutes to write about something new that you really want to learn about or discover. Try to just let yourself write.

 Take the four sentences that you wrote when we were practicing on sentence structure. Did you use them in your drafting? If not, then think about a way you can add at least two compound sentences using one of our big four SOBA coordinating conjunctions to your next draft.  When you turn this in, I will ask you to show that you used these sentences in your final draft.

 What did you notice as you participated in the simulated and integrated practice? How did the two types of work balance one another?  What steps/strategies were used in order to get you to think about creating effective sentences?

How will you use what we’ve done here today in your classroom? What type of simulated practice are you currently doing? Integrated? How can you make the two work together to teach about effective sentences in the next week?

 Gallagher, K.(2011):Write like this: teaching real-world writing through modeling and mentor texts. Stenhouse, Portland, Maine.  Riggs, R.(2011). Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Quirk Books, Philadelphia, PA.