1. Using Multisensory Grammar to Facilitate Writing
Writers Right
Using Multisensory Grammar to Facilitate Writing

2. What is important to me…
nature and spirit
love
family
canine companions
Learning and growing
dancing and
friends
…joyful living

3. Teaching Adults: ESL and Teacher Education

4. Teaching Children: Elementary Education
Demographics
African American 3.4%
White %
Hispanic %
Native American 0.3%
Asian/Pacific Islander 0.2%
Economically Disadvantaged 66.3%
At Risk %
Limited English Proficient 43.5%
Title One
Located in middle-class subdivision

5. Reading Intervention Bilingual 1st through 3rd graders
10 small 30 minute groups per day
Up to 6 students per group
Library

6. I can’t read. That’s just the way it is. Joel, age 7

7. Donald H. Graves
“Children want to write. They want to write the first day they attend school. This is no accident. Before they went to school, they marked up walls, pavements, and newspapers with crayons, chalk, pens or pencils…anything that makes a mark. The child’s marks say ‘I am’.”
Donald H. Graves, 1983

8. Donald H. Graves
“Writing taught once or twice a week is just frequent enough to remind students that they can’t write and teachers that they can’t teach.”
Donald H. Graves, 1983

9. Share with your shoulder partner.
Donald H. Graves
Interview
17:45-20:43
Why is it important for the teacher to write with her students?
Share with your shoulder partner.

10. Multisensory Teaching
Louisa Moats
“The term multisensory is often used to describe strategies that involve learners in activities that use two or more sensory modalities simultaneously to take in or express information” (Farrell & Sherman, 2011, p. 25).
Pat Sekel
Judith R. Birsh, Ed.

11. How can I teach Joel to think of himself as a writer?

12. Multisensory Grammar Neuhaus Education Center
Parts of speech color coded
Students use color coding to help them understand the function of words in a sentence.
Nouns=yellow
Verbs=orange
Adjectives=blue
Adverbs=purple
Conjunctions=brown
Prepositions=green
Noun markers=red

13. “Painless” Writing Neuhaus Education Center
“Painless Paragraph Writing”
Highly structured for students who need it
Helps students feel successful.
Helps students be writers right now.

14. Photo Prompt

15. “Painless” Poetry Noun swamp egret cypress knees moss duck weed trees
water

16. “Painless” Poetry Noun Verb swamp lives egret observes cypress knees
petrify
moss
dangles
duck weed
marinates
trees
wade
water
meditates

17. “Painless” Poetry
Adjective thick elegant knobby curly tiny towering calm green snowy stiff gray pale-green strong motionless Noun swamp egret cypress knees moss duckweed trees water Verb lives observes petrify dangles marinates wade meditates

18. “Painless” Poetry The thick, green swamp lives.
An elegant snowy egret observes.
Knobby, stiff cypress knees petrify.
Curly gray moss dangles.
Tiny pale-green duckweed marinates.
Towering strong trees wade.
The calm, motionless water meditates.

19. “Painless” Poetry
The thick, green swamp lives The calm Motionless water, the water meditates An elegant snowy egret observes Knobby, stiff cypress knees petrify petrified mystify. Towering strong trees With dangling gray curly moss dangles gray curls wade. Tiny pale-green duckweed marinates. Towering strong trees wade The thick, green swamp soup lives.

20. Swamp Soup Motionless, the water meditates.
An elegant snowy egret observes
Knobby, stiff cypress knees mystify.
Towering strong trees
With dangling gray curls wade.
Tiny pale-green duckweed marinates.
The thick, green soup lives.

21. Your Turn Choose a picture of something meaningful to you.
Create a color-coded chart of nouns, verbs and adjectives on the foldable provided.
Write out sentences with one noun, one verb and two adjectives.
Reorder, eliminate and revise sentences.
Add whatever else you want.
Write out final poem.
Feel free to vary from this structure in anyway you see fit.

22. Author’s Chair
Please, have a seat!

23. How can you apply this to your classroom?

24. Let’s help all of our students tell their stories.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”
Maya Angelou
Let’s help all of our students tell their stories.