Repairing Run-On Sentences

One of my goals for next year is to help my students really strengthen their sentence control. Many teachers feel daunted by this, so it's no wonder the confusion trickles down to the kids! Understandably, it's hard to keep it all straight: simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, fragments, comma splices, run-ons, etc. On top of that, our budding writers are expected to vary their sentences throughout a written piece! It's like the never-ending writing skill, but it's vital in fourth grade and in life. One thing I can do over the summer (that I actually enjoy) is beef up my collection of resources. I'm thrilled with these task cards I created today:

 CLICK HERE to download the set from TpT!

Rather than relying on multiple choice answers, this exercise enables students to:

1. Identify if the sentence is truly a run-on sentence.

2. Rewrite run-on sentences in a variety of ways.

It will take lots of front loading (reviewing parts of speech, reteaching subject and predicate, etc.) to give my students the foundation they need before tackling those tricky run-on sentences. Modeling sentence writing, explicitly teaching the compound sentence pattern, and showing them a variety of mentor sentences helped my most recent group of fourth graders. Other tips include encouraging students to read their sentences aloud and revising drafts as they go (rather than finishing an entire draft before rereading it.) 

How do you teach your students to develop sentence control? Please spread your knowledge and leave a comment!

Word Choice Rejoice!

Word choice is a delicate, yet important thing in any piece of writing. It makes our writing colorful! I've gone on about "shades of meaning" in a previous post. I've found that my students are eager to use "razzle dazzle words" in their writing, but they need to actually understand the new words they choose to use before using them! Fourth graders also tend to focus more on sounding "fancy" than specific, and this is one of the habits I hope to change in my incoming group of fourth graders. With these goals in mind, I created a new tool for my writing traits toolbox:

CLICK HERE to download it from my TpT Store!

I hope this little activity will encourage our budding writers to build vocabulary, consider shades of meaning, and ultimately enhance word choice in their own writing! 

Writing Traits Posters for 2014

If you're like me, the holiday break gets you thinking about changes, updates, and renewed goals for the classroom. What worked well this semester? Who are the students I still need to reach? How will I reach them? It's almost as if teachers come up with their own New Year's resolutions just for school, which I think is very healthy and reflective! If one of your "school resolutions" is to stock up on new writing resources, I have something perfect for you! I have always been a fan of teaching the 6+1 writing traits, and I finally got around to creating my own posters. I hope there are some hardworking writing teachers out there who find them useful! Happy 2014!

Click HERE to download all 7 posters from my TpT Store!

Tricky Transition Words

After every writing curriculum assessment/benchmark test, I always go over the top 5 most missed questions with my students. Although they did well overall on our most recent one, 4/5 of the most missed revising/editing questions were over transition words! They're experts at using them in their own writing, but it's challenging for them to choose the best ones on a multiple choice test. We were also doing an author study on Cynthia Rylant at the time, so I created a transition word review activity that pairs with one of her books!

I read aloud Cynthia Rylant's autobiography, Best Wishes. It's from a great series of different authors' autobiographies called "Meet the Author." I chose Best Wishes because it goes back and forth between past and present, so transition words are essential. (It also gave the kids an interesting snapshot of the life of a successful writer!) Although it's non-fiction, it still uses time-order transition words. After the read aloud, students got together with their writing partners to retell the events of Cynthia's life with a summary that included fill-in-the-blank transition words. I know I can't be the only one struggling with teaching.... and reteaching.... and reteaching... this tricky writing skill, so I wanted to share my little resource!

Click HERE to download it from TpT!

After doing this author study a couple times, I've decided my favorite book by Cynthia Rylant would have to be In November. It's the perfect mentor text to teach show-don't-tell and sensory writing. The language and illustrations are beautiful in every scene. I will read it next month and then have my students publish their own book, In February. 

Why wait until this time of year to read In November? So they can't be copycats! 

"Hook ' Yer Reader" Part 2!

It's official... school being in full swing has definitely taken a lot of my time and energy that could be spent blogging, but don't give up on me! There are still plenty of writing goodies to go around!

You may have read my previous post about three easy and effective ways for kids to HOOK their readers. I just finished introducing leads with my students, and they are already impressing me! With lots of modeling and showcasing author examples, the kids will get more and more confident with writing their own leads. Anchor charts always help, too!

Anchor chart used to teach leads

After introducing three ways to hook the reader (through this freebie!) I created a little homework assignment that challenged them to revise boring beginnings and write their own hooks. It was a short yet challenging little exercise! I hope you can use this in your classroom, too!

Click HERE to download it!

Linky & Printables

I love Oh Boy 4th Grade so much that I don't even mind, as Farley puts it, "the lack of sentence structure!" I read her blog tonight and felt compelled to join the "Currently" linky party:

I also want to share some back-to-school printables for all you hardworking writing teachers out there! They've been uploaded to my TpT Store, but I have yet to post them to the blog!

I'm proud of this one: Revising vs. Editing. I've learned that acknowledging them as two different steps of the writing process really is important if you want your students' writing to grow. Revising is typically more challenging for young writers since it can be so vague at first, but it's so worth all the hard work! I will board that soapbox another day. Anyway, we have a couple chants that go along with this printable:

Teacher: "Revising is..."
Students: "...making it SOUND better!" *make a hearing gesture*

and

Teacher: "Editing is..."
Students: "Making it LOOK better!" *make hand binoculars*

Then, I'll throw examples at them. I'll ask, "If I read my first draft aloud to you, would you be able to hear that the word "august" needs to be capitalized?" etc. The possibilities are endless...

 Download it HERE!

My other printable is a FREEBIE that will help ease the pain when your students hear the tragic news: "Said is DEAD!"  We had so much fun with this motto/theme last year, and I can't wait to do it all over again with our new group!

 

Download it for free HERE! 

I hope I've given you a little inspiration for a brand new school year! May your workroom be stocked and your coffee be caffeinated!