9-27-12 Activities and Reflection Student 2

Field Notes:

Goals: Traffic light paragraphs

            expository vs. narrative

*100 on geography test

*Test in Wordly Wise tomorrow

     *Played iPad game to review

*Talked about types of writing

     *Then writing process, then traffic light

     *Tried to say the final paragraph of his short story did not follow this formula. But that was ok--I explained his story was a different style of writing, so it followed a different formula

*Read example paragraph and color coded--not terribly enthused to color, but was happier when I told him we would be scribbling. Got bored with that eventually, but did do #3 independently--only used vertical lines to mark beginning and end of sentences.

*Worked together to create outline, but final paragraph was a story (narrative). It still works, kind of.

*Began typing paragraph at 5:19, finished 5:25, but accidentally deleted. Had full conclusion written and was very disappointed.

     *I pointed out how much less time typing the paragraph took compared to last session where 2 paragraphs took the full hour.

Reflection:

Hmm...This one might give me (more) gray hairs. This particular student has a hard time focusing anyway, so I'm not terribly surprised he lost interest with dissecting the sample paragraphs. He did do well with them, so I think he understands at least.  We definitely need some more work in the difference between expository and narrative though. As I said in the field notes, he was initially confused because his prior narrative didn't follow the "formula." I had to point out the differences between his fictional narrative and the nonfiction nature of expository writing.  Also, he had difficulty writing his own expository paragraph. Again, his story works...it's just not what I was going for. 

Hopefully he at least saw the value in doing prewriting activities. I made sure to point out to him how little time the outline and drafting took compared to a few weeks ago when he had to write a short story and he struggled and struggled to come up with his few paragraphs. He acknowledged how little time it took. I just hope he internalizes it and follows the process himself. That's my main goal for all of my students, whether they're reading or writing--for them to internalize the process so it becomes automatic, especially since so little for these students is automatic. Many will still struggle to some extent, but at least having a strategy they know works is huge.

9-27-12 Activities and Reflection Student 1

Field Notes:

Goals: Review traffic light paragraphs, elaborate on elements of expository writing

            Introduce accordion paragraphs

            Thesis sentence if time

*Came in and immediately asked if he could work on a current event assignment after I made a comment about him bringing iPad.

        *Doing iPhone 5

        *Found an article- 5 things to know about the iPhone 5

        *Read and verbally summarized: Passbook is a new feature, asked how it worked, so we played with the new features on my iPhone 4S.

playing with the panoramic camera

*Introduced basics of accordion paragraph

      *Related it to actual accordion--asked what an accordion sounded like, so I searched on iTunes and youtube for examples

*Began 2 side outline or article

     *Used each of the 5 points as key idea and added details from article

     *"What does inferior mean?"

*Talked about other iPhones

*Began drafting paragraph at 4:18, finished 4:30

     *Stopped to talk about future current events assignments

          *Choose own topic each week, but cannot be about sports

     *Stopped to talk about evolution of computers

Reflection: 

This session was so much fun. I love how eager my student was to write today!  He came in ready and raring to go. In actuality, I had spoken with him mom about doing his Current Events assignment during our time together. We agreed this week and next to spend time reading an article, summarizing it, and then doing the outline/draft. After that, he will be responsible for doing the above steps and we will work on revising/editing.  Future steps include a strong thesis statement, transitions, and conclusions.

This student completed his draft right as our time expired. Since he worked on his own iPad, I unfortunately did not get a copy of the draft, but he wrote a strong outline. This article lent itself nicely to our method of outlining. The article had 5 new features, but he ended up only using 4. The one he left out, neither of us knew much about, so since he didn't understand it I think that decision was wise. No sense in writing about something you can't actually explain.

I think this is also a great example of learning by doing. It's one thing to read about the features of the new iPhone, but to be able to try them out really helped him understand how they worked (even though I have the "old" 4S, most of the upgrades were iOS related so I got them, too!). Once again, talking is an important theme for the day. I have a feeling when I start coding data, this will be a major finding.

Student 3

I have a third participant! He has been coming only once a week to finish up his current level in Barton. Small explanation: Barton spans 10 level and do not correspond to reading levels. Most students complete levels 1-8 while in elementary school and return for Levels 9 and 10 once they have completed eighth grade, simply because of the advanced vocabulary in the last two levels. This particular student just completed Level 8. We have done some limited writing instruction towards the end of last school year and during the summer upon his mom's request (this was actually the inspiration for my project).  By participating in my study, I hope this will give us both more structure in the writing instruction and serve as a way to refine what I've done with my first two guinea pigs students.

Field Notes:

Goals: Baseline for writing and typing

           Review and sight words

           Interviews

*Writing baseline: began at 3:42, ended at 3:56, paused at 3:44 to read aloud a section I was in (I died).

     *"How do spell your name...I mean Angie?"

     *Very quickly began reading story aloud, without prompting.

           *Found 5 corrections to make

     *"That was a funny story!"

*Questionnaire-Writer's profile

*Superficial answers; got stuck for a plan, but found inspiration for iPad story.

*iPad story: began 4:07, ended 4:20

     *"Not how you spell there...That's not how you spell it either...oh well, this is the wrong there."

     *"How do you spell Philip?" "I spell it "p-h-i-l-l-i-p, but some might only have 1 L."  "Your way it [spell checker] says is wrong and my way is right."

     *Read aloud and found 2 corrections to make.

*"What was easier to write, on paper or iPad?" "iPad"

*Began attitude survey and interview

Reflection:
This student may be another toughie. He likes to be funny and I think sometimes that's his cover for his struggles.  All of his answers to questions about what kind of stories he likes to write were "funny ones", which is exemplified in his response after reading his own initial writing piece.

I'm kind of impressed we got both initial writings in this session.  He spent the least amount of time drafting both than either of my other students. Either I'm more focused or he's a "do it and be done" kind of writer.  We'll hope for the former :)

9-20-12 Activities and Reflection Student 2

Field Notes:

Goals: Expand bare bones

            Write phrases on cards and move around, check to make sure they make sense

*Has a short story to write: 3-9 pages, historical fiction.

     *Has 2 paragraphs so far, I read those to myself

     *Found 1 sentence that didn't make much sense, he edited appropriately.

*Asked how his short answer response from last week went

     *"Good!" With double thumbs up

     *This reminded him of edmodo assignment for fragments and run-on sentences

     *Had difficulty figuring out how to edit on site.

*Reviewed short story assignment details

     *The teacher had created a document with some pre-writing questions. She asked for details, but he limited how thoroughly he answered.

*Began writing paragraph 3. Had difficulty getting started: "How do I say this is the next day?"

     * "You could start the paragraph with 'The next day'"

     *Got stuck again after that sentence

*Talked through how the people to died.

     *"Did you write any of that?"   "Oh. No."

     *Had a much easier time after we talked out the details.

*Uncomfortable typing on iPad on table and chair, so he stretched out in the floor.

*Counted sentences for each paragraph--strives for 4 to be a paragraph, Got disappointed why I suggested he add a small detail sentence to a paragraph, which would have added a sentence.

*A nurse shark saved Bo (the man character) and he began telling me all about nurse sharks, what the look like, etc.

*Had about a page and a half double spaced when he left.

**Look up 6+1 traits of writing (what his class is using).

**How does SUTW teach narrative writing?

Reflection:
Since Student 2 is now official, I figure I can begin sharing his data. I've been keeping up all along with his stuff, so he's well beyond all the initial data. For the most part, Student 2 has been working about a day behind Student 1 mostly because Student 2 actually brings in writing assignments and English homework to work on. Since most of this works in to what we're doing anyway, it's been working. Just another reason individual sessions are so wonderful.

This session really wore me out!  He really struggled with this assignment, partly because he has attention difficulties anyway, partly because he did not really take the time to fully answer the teacher's pre-writing questions. Although, to be fair, asking a dyslexic student to read and write in that way may not have been the best idea. But, pre-writing is where we're headed, so he's just going to have to deal with this extra step.

Talking seemed to be the huge theme for the day. I noticed this in another session with this student when we worked on reading responses. He struggled and struggled over what to write until I had him talk it out, explain what he's thinking. "Tell me more." "What else?" He got a little frustrated I think, but this led to more thorough answers, and today a longer writing.  Talking may end up being a major theme of my findings.

I really need to look up and study how Step Up to Writing teaches narrative writing. The academic therapist recommended the traffic light first "because it's easier to teach" which I certainly agree with so far. However, between the struggles today and this student's favoring narratives anyway, I think we may briefly work on expository and move on to narratives relatively quickly.

9-20-12 Activities and Reflection Student 1

Field Notes:

Goals: Begin paragraph construction (SUTW)

                *Introduce traffic light, purpose, writing process

            ID parts of pre-written paragraphs

            Explain expository v. narrative--our focus is expository

            Do two column outline for own paragraph

*Good field trip

*School's Oktoberfest is coming up and already being set up, so dismissal is weird

        *School gets dismissed early Friday so they can finish.

*Apple came to interview sixth grade teachers and students about iPads.

*Told him we were going to move on to paragraph writing, which he said he does at school a lot.

*Introduced the traffic light-discussed the colors and what they mean

         *Read paragraph 1 to himself and together we decided what color each sentence should be and I "highlighted" with colored pencils

         *Had a pretty easy time, wanted to say a sentence was red, but once I asked if it went with a yellow sentence or the topic green sentence, he realized it wasn't.

         *Read paragraph 2 to himself and repeated the process. This time paragraphs had red sentences and we talked through those, especially if there was more than 1 red sentence per yellow. I related this paragraph to 5 paragraph essays, which he said he writes a lot for school.

         *Read paragraph 3 to himself and he independently highlighted the sentences their appropriate colors 

                 *100% accuracy

*Discussed elements of expository writing, using SUTW hand out

*Outlined paragraph about Octoberfest

*He wrote a paragraph based on the outlined and took approximately 7 minutes.

         *Made a few minor mistakes with periods, 1 wrong word.

*Once he finished, we repeated the highlighting activity as a way of checking all details were included

Reflection:

I am so glad our academic therapist showed me this program! Step Up to Writing is designed to be a multi-sensory writing program, perfect for dyslexic students. While I'm mostly working off sample pages, she also had a binder of the full program...except not? I feel like it's missing some handouts and visuals, but it is helpful for filling in some blanks left by the samples.

Our traffic light discussion was kind of funny. Paragraphs start off with the green "go" sentences, a.k.a. the topic sentences. Then you must "slow down" for yellow and the conversation turned to how most drivers speed up to get through the intersection at a yellow light.  Finally I just told him he better slow down or the detail car will make him stop anyway!

I had him deconstruct several sample paragraphs just so he could get practice with these detailed sentences. Our academic therapist warned me students cling tight to the 5-sentence paragraph like a life raft. When we first worked on Paragraph 1, he was a little confused that there were no reds. After reading Paragraph 2 (which was very similar to #1, but with more detail), I asked which was was a better paragraph and he said #2. I asked why and he said, "because the details make it more interesting. I told him absolutely and that technically nothing was wrong with #1. It's a "get it done" kind of paragraph--the kind you write for an assignment just to be done. But #2 is a "get a good grade" kind of paragraph--the kind you write and you'll get an A on.

I guided him through the writing of an outline, pointing out the different components. From there, he very quickly wrote his paragraph. His form certainly looked more like a paragraph--the first line was indented compared to the others. It still wasn't quite lined up with the vertical pink line, but it's progress!

Visuals

I officially have a second study participant! This student carpools with another of our kids and Mom and Dad had been out of town, so s/he kept forgetting. But it's signed without coercion :) I may even be able to pick up a third student, as one of my regulars finished Barton, but is staying on for review/writing instruction anyway. Now that I'm figuring out what the heck I'm doing, this student will be a good one to refine on.

Since I officially have two students, from now on I will refer to students as "he" instead of the "s/he" mystery. Protecting identities and all that.

This session was a lot of fun with Student 1. Our academic therapist introduced me to the program "Step Up to Writing", a commercial program that is great for dyslexic students because it incorperates many visual cues and is multi-sensory for the planning process of writing. It also changes the linear approach to writing students are often accustomed:


The traditional writing approach tends to go in a straight line: brainstorming/prewriting, drafting, revising and editing, final copy, publishing. However, real writers don't follow that process so rigidly. That's why there are cycle lines around drafting, revising, and editing. That's a continual process. I used the example of Kathryn Stockton writing The Help. She revised and edited her manuscript over 40 times before a publisher accepted it.

The AT brought me all of her resources to put together real writing instruction. Student 1 has worked through the basics of sentence structure, so I felt he was ready to move on to paragraph construction. What I love about the Step Up to Writing program (SUTW) is their "traffic light" approach.

(sorry, I forgot to rotate BEFORE uploading). The basic premise is the first sentence is the thesis or topic sentence (Go = green). The next sentence is a reason or detail supporting the topic (Slow Down = yellow). Then, the student must STOP (red) and explain that detail. Yellow and red cycles repeat as long as the student wants, but I encouraged at least 3 supporting details. Finally, the last sentence reminds the reader of the original topic (green again).

Because this approach is totally new to most students, I used some paragraphs from the program to illustrate what these paragraphs look like. The first, obviously, is not very detailed. I had Student 1 read the paragraph to himself and we talked through the colors. He then read the second paragraph and we again talked through the colors. I then asked which paragraph he thought was better and he said, "Definitely 2" (field notes, 9/20/12).  For the last paragraph, I turned control over to my student. He read the paragraph and then on his own marked the sentences with appropriately colors. After he finished, we talked through it, though he did not have any trouble.


Then it was his turn to write. The biggest addition to the writing process, besides the cycle method, is the planning stage. This was the thing that stuck out to me most in my initial research that dyslexic students need. They need some kind of structure to organize their thoughts BEFORE they actually try to draft.  I used the two column approach described in SUTW, although I messed it up just a little bit. We'll do it again though and do it correctly!

My student decided to write about the upcoming OktoberFest. Below is his planning outline. I walked him through the steps and afterwards, we again color-coded each step. His supporting details include, fun, friends, and the dunking booth.

Once the outline was finished, he transferred his organized ideas into sentences. Again, sorry for the rotation. The paragraph reads:

      Octoberfest is coming up. It is a blast. There are blow ups, which I think you can never get old of. Then there are the games which you can collect all the junk food. Many of my friends go. We hang out there. There is also a dunking booth. There are priest and teacher there. There is always a crowd around the mean teachers. Overall, Octoberfest is awesome.

Still some things to work on...word choice and variation, subject/verb agreement, "say what you mean", etc. For a first shot with a new system, I think he did a good job. After he finished, I went through and color coded his sentences, thinking out loud as I went.  All of his original ideas were there, slightly changed and expanded, everything (generally) makes sense.

Thick Description 2

Yesterday (Friday), I had the pleasure of eating lunch with a co-worker. We see a mutual student, who is struggling with our reading program, so we met to discuss how to personalize the otherwise generic lessons.  She also knows the mother of a student in my study and Mom had e-mailed my co-worker with some questions, not only about what we're doing in writing, but also how the student is progressing in his/her reading therapies. And P.F. Changs helps everyone talk :)

We had a wonderful discussion over egg drop soups about our first student and came out with several plans of action to help. My co-worker printed the e-mail Mom sent and showed it to me. Nothing terrifying. Just wondering if there was a particular program I was following, if sending his/her homework assignments to me was OK, how long I planned on working with him, and what I felt his strengths and weaknesses were.  I explained the activities we have done so far--Phrase or Sentence?, Create a Sentence, revising and editing, IVAN CAPP parts of speech, and Bare Bones sentences. We had just the previous day worked on expanding those sentences (which will be another post) and while the student understood the concepts, s/he struggled just a little to come up with longer sentences. The expanded ones were good, definitely longer and more descriptive, but they still lacked...something.  I told my co-worker I think this may be one of his/her weaknesses. His/Her strength is being very verbal and articulate, but there is sometimes a disconnect between what can be spoken and what gets written. I fully expected this disconnect, as it's a common struggle for students with dyslexia.  I think the next part of what I will be doing will help bring a concrete example to an otherwise ambiguous topic.

Speaking of what's next, to answer Mom's question if I was following a particular program, the question comes from reading tutoring. I've mentioned before we use Barton Reading and Spelling system for our reading sessions, so it's a planned out, "scripted" (I'm notorious for going off-script, just because I've taught the lessons enough to know the rule and its applications) program. I'm not doing anything like that. Instead of telling my co-worker what I'm kind of doing--making it up as I go along--I  couched it nicely with "I'm cobbling together the best aspects of several things I've found." Which is true. In my research, I found a fairly natural progression suggestion in one book. I found a great way of helping students organize their ideas for longer writings in another. I found a concrete way of showing students how to expand their ideas in another. Absolutely, his school assignments can be worked in to this model, so please send them with him. My co-worker said she would ask Mom to ask the classroom teacher for extensions on writing assignments or even send them to me ahead of time, so I could gather any materials the student may need.  It was then my co-worker filled me in on why Mom is so concerned--my student seems to have a case of the "no turn ins."  Homework mysteriously doesn't get turned it. I was unclear on whether it was s/he wasn't telling Mom about the assignments period and not doing homework or if it was done, just not getting turned in...point of clarification needed.

I also told my co-worker my study runs through the end of October, but that I was prepared to continue through December. However, my real plan was to continue until someone told me to stop! Once I introduce the "new" writing process, our sessions will mostly be a matter of writing and refining and can be rinsed and repeated as often as necessary. Mom is a little concerned about getting Barton done as quickly as possible, so I suggested I could take a few minutes to work on Barton, but my co-worker said she would push for the full hour remain writing instruction.

Finally, over almond and cashew chicken (me) and something my co-worker described as "not Weight Watcher's approved, but I've already had my weigh-in for the week and I've lost so it's OK" (her), we wrapped up work talk and moved on to more interesting subjects like our husbands and why we love them, the difficulties of a literal interpretation of the Bible, and a meeting she had with our boss. Hard to believe all of that and we were only gone just over an hour! We arrived back at the office in time for her to get in the car line to pick up her daughter from school and for me to finish preparing for a student I see for Academic Coaching.

9-13-12 Reflection

Field Notes:

Goals: Expand bare bones

           Sentences

*Going on field trip to Bagdad, KY

        *Disappointed he cant't do ziplining because the teachers won't let them.

*Talked about why I wrote the previous note :)

*Reviewed complete sentences

*Mentioned his class is learning prepositions. 

*Has to memorize first 20 from a list by Monday

*Talked about songs as a memorizing technique

           *I sang my high school chemistry elements song, which reminded his of Harry Potter character singing all of the elements--looked up on YouTube

*Direct Instruction for expanding sentences

*Rules: Noun must come before verb

                  Adjectives modify (fancy word for describe) nouns

                  Adverbs modify verbs

*Expanded bare bones sentences from last week, his included adjectives and prepositional phrases

         *I mentioned sentence 2 has two prepositional phrases, but tell two different things.

         *Didn't change any phrases to the beginning.

*Since we had not really discussed conjunctions or interjections, I showed him the two corresponding Schoolhouse Rock videos on YouTube.

*Discussed using conjunctions sparingly so sentences don't get too long and the reader gets lost.

**Follow up on long sentences, work on where to end.    

Reflection:
I worked with one of my students on expanding "Bare Bones" sentences. We have discussed the elements of a complete sentence--a noun followed by a verb--and wrote three "Bare Bones" sentences, literally on bone shapes. S/He had just a little trouble getting started, so I wrote one and that got him/her jump started to do two more (The page I used had three bone shapes). The focus of this session was to expand these sentences. We discussed how parts of speech like adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases are not essential to sentences, but make sentences better.  I took the Bare Bones sentence I wrote (Miss Angie drove.) and expanded it to read: The stunningly gorgeous Miss Angie drove her lime green Porsche quickly down the street.  We worked together to deconstruct what I had written, though not formally "diagramming" it. My student pretty easily identified the parts of speech i added to make my sentence more interesting. I also switched phrases around to read: In her lime green Porsche, the stunningly gorgeous Miss Angie quickly drove down the street. I gave him/her a general rule that if a sentence does not begin with a subject phrase (our reading tutoring calls it the "who phrase"), a comma is needed between each phrase until you reach the subject. S/He seemed to catch on. Then it was his/her turn. Overall, I was pleased with the sentences. S/He achieved the goal of expanding the sentences to be more interesting, but didn't expand them as fully as I think s/he is capable. As I noted in my previous post, I think there is a disconnect between verbal and written expression, which I was prepared for, I just didn't take the time to talk through the expansion first.

We also deconstructed the expanded sentences, noting s/he included two different prepositional phrases. I noticed that s/he didn't really expand much at the beginning of the sentence, only adding an adjective before the subject noun. That's something I'd like to work on in the future--just writing the same sentence different ways. Maybe make it a game--how many ways can you write the same thing? Ha! S/He'll LOOOOOOOVE that (insert eye roll here)!

I think today exemplified what we have been learning about and recently treating in our office--students' memory difficulties. Some dyslexic students have excellent visual memory. It's why so many "fly under the radar" for so many years; they can quickly and easily memorize words. They just have no idea how to break down words they don't know.  Other students have terrible memory. One little guy we saw over the summer couldn't tell you what he had for breakfast that same day. Often I ask how a student's day was and they'll respond, "Good." I ask what they did and they have no idea, can't even name one thing. 

That's why I spent a lot of time talking about memory devices today. Anytime a dyslexic must memorize a seemingly arbitrary list of items, he or she is essentially set up for failure. Memory tricks help. That's why I've been using pneumonic devices like IVAN CAPP. We've talked about what a pneumonic device is--of course they all look at me like I have 5 heads when I say "pneumonic device." Once I show them the popular ROY G. BIV, they can usually name others they've heard.

Songs are another great memory trick. Hopefully this student will be able to put the list of prepositions to some kind of tune. The alphabet song is why most of our students can even tell us the letters of the alphabet and even then, if they get stuck, they have to start all over to pick back up.  Songs are also why I showed this student the SchoolHouse Rock videos. What haven't I learned from SchoolHouse Rock? To this day, I can still sing the preamble to the Constitution.  I think it brought conjunctions and interjections into a relatable level, since we had not really talked in depth about them.  My student had never seen these videos and, while they are a little young for him/her, I think they got the point across and dare I say were enjoyed.  I was also careful to note use conjunctions to combine sentences sparingly. If you've used "and" more twice in one sentences, it's too long and needs to be broken up.

Thick Description

Last Thursday, I saw each of my two writer guinea pigs students. One student in particular stood out in his/her session. We began our session by revising and editing a previously written piece using my handy ARMS and CUPS posters. Eventually I hope to separate out these two tasks, but for now simultaneously works.  S/He did a great job with CUPS. I love how s/he put a check mark by each sentence as it was proofread. That made capitals and punctuation very easy.  However, the student chose not to add, remove, move, or substitute any details, nor did s/he really read the writing to make sure capitals and punctuation were in the right places.  Maybe s/he would have been more willing to change things if we were working again on the computer, as we were in a different room that day.

I then began some direct instruction about simple subjects and predicates, which this student has been reviewing in school as well. I know because we've worked on an assignment for his class during a few minutes of a session :)  S/he really likes to take shortcuts. In the few sentences he diagrammed (I didn't feel the need to do many sentences since the student is already very familiar with the concept), he would draw one long line under the noun and verb and divide between the two words.  When I modeled, I carefully rewrote the noun and verb, adding articles under the noun.

Once we had the basics of deconstructing simple sentences down, we began creating our own simple sentences, or "Bare Bones" sentences. I again insisted on sentences with just a noun and just a verb for now.  However, some of the creations were not sentences, such as "running battery"and "iPad wearing cap."  These sentences led to discussion about the nouns needing to come before the verb.  In the case of  the first sentence, we also needed to drop the -ing in order to help make the sentence make more sense. The last sentence had a little more detail than I wanted at this point, so we finally camp up with "Cap wears." Not perfect, but s/he is also very literal, so s/he had difficulty pulling apart his/her own sentence to simplify.

Perhaps the most telling activity of the session was our game "Phrase or Sentence?" In retrospect, I probably should have introduced this activity first, just because of the difficulty s/he had. Although, because s/he had such difficulty, maybe it'd good it was last since now I can create more cards for practice. Out of a total of 14 cards, s/he misidentified 5, mostly calling phrases sentences.  However, this may not be surprising because the student likes to take so many shortcuts, s/he easily could have just looked at the capital and period all the cards had and put the longest ones in sentences.  I will definitely make more for our next session.

9-6-12 Activities/Reflection

Field Notes:
Goals: More create sentences
           More phrase v. sentences (using run ons from own writings)
           Diagramming sentences

*Create sentences
       *"Their furious teacher bravely made a proposal to publicize the outrageous suggestion."
       *me: "How can you change the order of words and it still be a sentence?"
               *S/He moved bravely to the beginning.
               *I began my short rule about commas and s/he finished it for me.
        *I moved "Made a proposal" to the beginning and asked if that was still a sentence
               *No; discussed why
        *I switched words to say "To publicize the outrageous suggestion, their furious teacher bravely made a proposal" and asked if that was still a sentence.
               *Yes

*Asked about an objective summary
*Talking about inverted sentences in English

*Phrase or sentence?
         *"It is a famous..."
                  *"It needs a comma, but yes it's a sentence."
                  *Talked about how it's actually 2 sentences. Able to pick out the other two that were run-ons and figured out where to put periods.

*Diagrammed simple sentences and sentences with adjectives.
*Wrote 2 "Bare Bones" sentences.

**Think of a way to turn "Bare Bones" into full sentences...skeleton?

Reflection:
I don't remember if I mentioned the logic behind Create a Sentence and Phrase or Sentence. Because I have so few students for writing, I borrowed a tutor manual of the current Barton level for each student and selected words/phrases/sentences roughly from the same lesson the student is working.  Just to account for the other hour of reading tutoring each student receives, I did a few for future lessons as well.

The comma rule I mentioned I explain to students when they write sentences as part of their Barton reading tutoring. Overly simplified, if a sentence does not start with a "who/what" phrase, then you need a comma to separate the first phrase from the rest of the sentence. I'm sure there is a very technical way to explain that but 1) I never learned it myself and even if I did, I never use that knowledge so I've forgotten and 2) if I don't understand the technical rule, I KNOW my students won't. So I keep it simple. Any student in at least Level 5 knows what I mean by "who/what phrase" and that's about when they start mixing in complex sentences like that anyway.

I thought it was funny that my student didn't catch on to the first run-on sentence as being his/her own writing. Actually, I didn't say anything until the second one and only because s/he didn't seem to recognize it.

The "Bare Bones" activity is another "steal" from our academic therapist. She's giving me tons of ideas and resources for my instruction in this project.  She has a page of literal bone outlines for students to write the very most basic of sentences--a noun and verb (or as I often end up referring to it, a "who" and a "did what"). They're called "Bare Bones" because that's what they are--the bare minimum you need to make a sentence.  I wish I had a creative way to connect their expansion to something like a skeleton...not sure how that would work since each sentence is a bone. Maybe it would work for compound sentences?

Visual Aids

I didn't quite make my goal of blogging the day of my writing teaching. I'm getting there though :)  I have some pictures, too!

We currently working on the "building blocks" of writing: What do sentences need? How do I know if I have a sentence? I previously described the games we have played to help drive this point home. I also introduced my friend, Ivan Capp:

Ivan is actually a friend of our academic therapist, but teachers are master borrowers and I added my own flair to the idea.  So far we have learned all sentences must have a noun (or pronoun) AND a verb. One student tried to get smart with me and gave an example of a command sentence, which doesn't have an explicit subject.  True, except his example wasn't a command, so I totally won that round!  One student is working slightly ahead of the other, so s/he has also created "bare bones" sentences--sentences with only a noun and verb, which we will be adding to later. I'm trying to come up with a connection from the bare bones to a skeleton. Ideas?

My other handy helpers I learned in ENG 5...something. I've tried to block that class out. But there were a couple of helpful nuggets buried in there. First up is the ARMS acronym for revising.

And the CUPS acronym for editing.

I want to be intentional about separating out revising and editing, since I did learn in my ENG class that they are, ideally, two different steps.  My students have used both of these acronyms to edit two longer writings they've done, mostly to establish baseline skills.  CUPS has gone over better than ARMS, but I fully expected that.

I'm also working on a poster depicting the two different approaches to the writing process. One is linear which most schools tend to teach and the other is cyclical, which is closer to what real authors use. I also will be adding a step from the traditional methods, which is the main difference I found in my research to teaching composition to dyslexic students. More on all that later.

A Change Will Do You Good

In creating my plans for activities tomorrow, I'm making a couple of executive decisions. One student has been catching on very quickly, but in reviewing some pieces s/he has written so far, his/her biggest struggle is when to end sentences. Holy run-on sentences, Batman!  I was planning to do a similar activity to last week, but making minor tweaks to further drive commas home. I think I will add in some of these sentences to our "Phrase or Sentence" game, just to see what s/he thinks.  Instead of focusing on building sentences with nouns/pronouns and verbs, conjunctions might have to make an early appearance!

I also think my official description on who will be asked to participate will be limited to only those students I see for writing instruction. I should be adding another student to this group in another week and a parent is pretty accessible, so I can easily explain the project.  That brings my grand total of possible participants to three...not a lot, but since my instruction is "extra curricular" anyway, I really feel for the families just trying to get their students through reading tutoring.

I finally got by the store today for visual aid supplies. I plan on actually taking pictures tomorrow so my descriptions actually make some sense! I'm also trying to get in the habit of posting the day of my instruction. It's tough since I see another student for reading after I see my writing kids, so my mind is usually on the last session since s/he is a hard one.