Improve sentence structures

Transcription

1 Improve sentence structures Our writing instruction can often operate at the whole text type structural level. At this level, we teach students about: What a text type looks like How it s structured - what goes in the beginning, middle and end What types of ideas we need to come up with to write in this text type How we plan for writing in this text type These skills are undoubtedly essential for being able to create any text type. However, when we only or mainly teach at the whole text type structural level, we ignore the micro level text type instruction that can make a significant difference to student writing. If we walked into a typical Year 7 classroom and looked at the persuasive writing they might be working on, what we would discover is this: All or most students have shaped their writing into what looks like a persuasive piece - there is an introduction, body and conclusion. Most students have topic sentences at the start of their body paragraphs, have used some type of fact or example in their body paragraphs and have linked their body paragraphs. Some students have used some excellent persuasive techniques. In other words, the more micro level the skill, the fewer the students who are doing it. Most students can shape a text into something that it is meant to look like, but less students can craft sentences that are exemplary examples for that text type. Unless whole text type structural instruction is tied to micro level instruction of shaping and crafting excellent sentences, then many students will only ever create examples of a text that at a distance look like the text type, but up close don t sound particularly effectively like a text type. On the next page is a break down of the four types of skills and knowledge students need to have to write a text. Whole text and paragraph knowledge are the structural skills that we can often focus on. 14

2 English Text Type Writing Skills Text level skills: Knowing what a text type looks like Knowing how a text type is structured Developing ideas and material to write about Shaping ideas and material into a plan Paragraph level skills: Separating paragraphs with a break Focusing a paragraph on an idea Writing topic sentences Elaborating within a paragraph through explanation, description or examples Using linking words to connect paragraphs Word level skills: Correct spelling Making specific word choices in different parts of speech Creating dense word groups Sentence level skills: Varying sentence openings, structures and length through word choice, word positioning and punctuation Creating sentences that flow into and connect with each other 15

3 Sentence and word skills are micro level skills that we can pass by. The previous chapter focused on word level skills. This section will look at sentence level skills and how it doesn t matter how effectively a text is structured, if the quality of its individual sentences is poor then so too will the overall piece be. Vary sentence starts One of the most distinctive attributes of average to poor writing is the lack of variety in sentence openings. The example below illustrates this phenomenon perfectly. This is a recount by a Year 7 student and has been rated at below average. The below average assessment might initially appear harsh - since there are a few examples of descriptive sentences that utilise prepositions to add detail. However, one thing that is clear about this piece of work - is that apart from the sentence that begins with when - every other sentence starts with a noun. Essentially, there is no sentence start variety and limited connectivity between sentences. In this section of the chapter, we ll look at a number of ways to build students skills at beginning their sentences with variety: Model sentence starts Being able to write with sentence start variety begins with students understanding 16

4 that they can start sentences in different ways - it doesn t always need to be with the subject of the sentence. Attached is a resource entitled Six different ways to start a sentence - which can be given as a handout to students or put as posters around a classroom as a reminder of sentence start options. One quick way of practising sentence starts is through sentence start acrostics. A normal acrostic is where we write a word vertically, and then write words coming from it horizontally which begin with each of the word s letters and somehow relate to it: Remembering Everybody Sensitive Polite Everywhere Caring Teaching In a sentence-start-acrostic, we write an entire sentence in a vertical column, instead of just the individual letters of one word. Students need to write a further sentence, stemming horizontally from each word in the vertical sentence, that begins with that word. Respect - Respect requires effort. Is - Isn t respect important to each of us? Important - Important as it is, respect is not the only value a school should have. In - In our school, we work hard to show respect. A - A kind of respect is being polite to each other. School - Schools can sometimes be places where it is hard to show respect. This activity can be done individually, in pairs (each partner takes a turn to write a new sentence), or in groups (a sheet is passed around - everyone needs to write at least one sentence). Conditions can be put on the activity to make it more challenging, such as: apart from the first word in a new horizontal sentence, no other word can be repeated from the vertical sentence or the initial sentence needs to have an adjective, adverb and preposition in it. Insert start Lots of sentence start instruction can happen at the post drafting stage. Using this method, students re-write a range of sentences from a piece they have drafted to improve the variety of sentence starts. This works most effectively when we give explicit instruction in how sentence starts 17

5 should be improved, rather than something vague like: rewrite your sentences so that start differently. One very clear and basic instruction we can give to students is this: Add detail and variety to start of your sentences by inserting a preposition or adverb. For example, additional information could be inserted at the start of the first sentence of the Year 7 bike story discussed earlier with a preposition: With great excitement, we raced over and chose our bikes...; Or with an adverb: Excitedly, we raced over and chose our bikes...students will need to know what prepositions and adverbs are to do this. Move part of speech to start Another way of improving sentence start variety is for students to move an existing part of speech in their sentence to the start. Consider the first sentence of the bike story again: We raced over and chose our bikes and began riding across the road. The student could move the verb to the start: Racing over the...?...we chose our bikes and began riding across the road. Or they could move the preposition to the start: Over the...we raced and chose our bikes and (then) began riding across the road. To get students to experiment with moving existing elements of their sentences to the start we can use this procedure: 1. Students must circle at least one sentence in each paragraph that could have a better start. 2. Students circle any verbs, adverbs or prepositions in the sentence. 3. Students decide which would be better at the start: the verb, adverb or preposition? Follow sentence start rule In this scheme, when students are writing, they need to follow the rule that no three sentences in a row can all start the same way (i.e with a noun). We can say to students that they should experiment with these sentence starts: Preposition start Conjunction start Adverb start 18

6 Find attached, a simple resource which lists common prepositions, conjunctions (including adverbial and surbordinating conjunctions) and adverbs that students can use at the start of a sentence. Assess sentence starts When grammatical structures are taught specifically, it s important to be clear and specific about meeting grammatical expectations in assessment criteria. Rather than vague grammar criteria which read: All grammar clear and correct - students are more likely to employ more sophisticated grammar structures if these are outlined as expectations in rubrics. In terms of experimenting with sentence openings, a rubric might read: High - Student has employed a range of successful sentence openings (at least four different types) which create variety in the whole piece and strong links between sentences. Medium - Student has employed a number of different sentence openings (2-3), which add some variety to the whole piece - but may not always be successfully used. Low - Only one or two different sentence openings used in the piece. No real variety to sentence openings. Improve connections and flow between sentences Variety in sentence openings is not just about variety for varieties sake. Good sentence openings create links and flow between sentences - so that a paragraph reads as sentences that click together like jigsaw pieces rather than just a series of statements that are listed one after another like a shopping list. On the next page we can see evidence of how links and flow between sentences creates a better piece. On the top of the page is a below satisfactory paragraph from a Year 10 persuasive piece. There is no variety in sentence starts - so the sentences read like a list of statements. In the paragraph on the bottom - an above satisfactory Year 10 piece - prepositions are used at the start of the first three sentences to create strong links between the sentences. In-But-So In expository writing, effective writers can often follow loose patterns in starting their sentences - such as preposition-nounconjunction-noun-preposition-noun. Such patterns aren t meant to be rigidly followed, they simply emerge as writers develop a sense of rhythm and flow between sentences. However, we can explicitly 19

7 Below satisfactory Year 10 persuasive piece Below satisfactory Year 10 persuasive piece 20

8 teach a pattern that can be a starting point for students. Attached are two resources labelled the In-But-So paragraph. One contains Year 12 examples of student work (so can be used at a more senior level), one contains Year 8 student work (so can be used at a more junior level). Both resources show students employing a pattern of sentence starts in order to create links between sentences. The resource provides a series of instructions that students can follow to create their own In- But-So paragraph. Referring nouns Stronger writers not only use different parts of speech at the start of sentences to create links, they also use nouns at the start of sentence that summarise or refer back to nouns in the previous sentence. Underneath is a basic example of this from a Year 7 speech on an inspiring person. In this piece, the student has used the pronoun they to refer back to My Poppy and his friends and later, the noun Everybody to refer back to they (fell of their chairs). Substituting pronouns for nouns and proper nouns (or vice versa) is the first step towards developing good referring word skills. If we look back at the Year 7 bike piece earlier, one problem with it is the continual use of the pronoun we - this student needs to work on substituting other nouns - such as all of us or everybody or the gang or the others and I to develop sophistication in their referring skills. So at its simplest level, students can just circle the nouns or pronouns they have used to label one thing (such as the protagonist in a story or a person in a report, or a topic in a paragraph) and assess whether there is variety. Could other words be used? Over the page is an example of an above satisfactory Year 9 piece of writing that employs more sophisticated referring words than just simply noun-pronoun substitution. In this piece of work the student has used two noun groups that summarise the preceding sentence. The concept of women being owned by men and A statement like this both refer back to the previ- 21

9 ous sentence and summarise or label an idea in it. We can develop this skill in students through a procedure such as this: 1) Students write a simple statement about a topic using the verb is. For example, we give students the topic of the character Macbeth and they might write the statement Macbeth is ambitious. 2) Students then need to follow on from this statement with a sentence which begins with This... but they cannot repeat any noun (so they can use Macbeth s name) from the first statement. So students might write This desire to be king corrupts Macbeth. 3) Students need to think about the key words in the second sentence they wrote. What is a group of words that could somehow be used to summarise this? Students need to start their next sentence with an of statement: The ruin of Macbeth... Experiment with punctuation Middle to weaker writers typically use a small selection of punctuation: full stops, question marks, commas and exclamation marks - less than 50% of the available punctuation to them. By encouraging students to experiment with punctuation, we will also be supporting them to develop the complexity and variety of sentence structures, to improve detail in them and links between them. If we teach students about the uses of commas, dashes, brackets, colons and semi-colons, we can get them to re-read their work and: Insert additional information with commas, dashes, brackets 22