Goals: Expository vs. narrative
Practice a true expository paragraph
*No homework because there’s no school tomorrow due to teachers’ conference in CA
*Had science and religion tests
*Not sure how he did, but enjoys astronomy
*Plays basketball for Lex Cath 6th grade team.
*Reintroduced traffic light and expository/narrative writing
*Discussed differences
*Began outline at 4:50, finished at 5:07
*Stopped to look up information about elements and read aloud several interesting facts.
*Began typing paragraph at 5:08, finished at 5:13
*Didn’t look at outline, except for conclusion--kept asking what came next.
*Didn’t use capitals or seem to take completely seriously because it wasn’t for school.
*Discussed the benefits of doing an outline
*Outline took 17 minutes and actual writing took 5.
*Looked at formatting outlines on iPad/computer
*iPad Pages does not have outline template, but Google docs does
*Neither has Tab key to move bullets
*Benefit of doing outline online is going through line by line to create sentences within the same document so no information gets left out.
*Assignment next week is to do an outline before beginning writing assignments
*“That’s why I hated my 4th grade teacher--She told us to make an outline, but never told us what it looked like or how to do it!”
*I made sure to point out the elements of our outline: Topic at the top, key points on the left, details on the right and conclusion at the bottom.
Reflection:
This week has been a slight challenge. My student who loves writing, and our sessions, had to miss his session, so I only had my two
I completed an interview with him and one of the questions asked what the student's goals were in improving his or her writing and the dialogue went a little something like this:
"I don't really have anything to improve." -student
"Then why are you coming?" -me
"Because my mom's making me." -student
"Well, she's spending a lot of money to bring you here. Why do you think she's doing that? What do you think SHE might want you to improve." -me
"I dunno." -student (in a laughing it off tone of voice)
Head meets wall. This student is a lot of fun though, I just hope he can take enough of the instruction seriously.
My other student was surprisingly on task today. All of the teachers at his school are going to California for a conference, so he doesn't have school tomorrow (Friday) and consequently did not have homework. While our tutor coordinator has been careful in telling parents these sessions are not specifically "homework help" or homework hour, I do welcome any writing assignments from school to go over together. And this student has come in every week with plenty of assignments! Just none today. Luckily, I had plans written and the fact that he didn't have homework distractions helped a lot. He was actually attentive and responsive and followed directions. The last one is nothing short of a miracle. The only downfall was he didn't bring his iPad (his school is part of an initiative to go paper-less in the upper grades, so he has a school issued iPad), so he discovered the games on mine. I just used that as my bargaining chip :)
He really did do a pretty great job. He doesn't like writing, but I suspect it's the physical act of writing...handwriting. This isn't surprising since many of our students also have dysgraphia, so writing is a difficult and literally painful task. I made him a deal that I would handwrite the outline he dictated if he would do the typing of the paragraph and that got the thumbs up. Once we were all done with the outlining and typing (and he was itching to beat my high score of Fruit Ninja), I pointed out that the outline could also be done on a computer and we spent some time figuring out how to do one on the iPad as well. Pages doesn't have an outline option on the iPad...that we could find. However, we were able to find a rough version of an outline in Google Docs (without the tab key, a true outline isn't possible, but it's close enough). I explained the easy part about making an outline on the computer is that it's easier to expand the thoughts into full sentences and make sure no details are left out. I may have him give that a try next week.
He definitely seemed to grasp the differences between narrative and expository this week. His writing was still a little disjointed--I'm not sure his "key points" were really key points and the "details" didn't always seem to to support the points, but it was at least nonfiction, and he made a pretty good effort with a topic he was actually interested in.
I also made sure to point out the time it took to create an outline and resulting paragraph, which was significantly less than anything he tries to write off the cuff. I'm not sure that has really hit home yet, but I'm working on it!
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