Student Writing Analysis &
Minilesson
(20% of course grade)
Goals
The purpose of this
assignment, most broadly, is to demonstrate your ability to use a
descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to teaching sentence-level
variety, grammar, and conventions. More
specifically, this assignment aims to give you practice in
o appreciating
the linguistic resources that young writers already possess and expand their
repertoire
o identifying
patterns--syntactic patterns, patterns in conventions-use, patterns of
trial-n-error
o setting
priorities for whole-class instruction
o explaining
sentence-level concepts in ways that students will understand, using both
verbal and visual means
o creating
activities using authentic texts that inspire student writers to experiment
with syntax and punctuation and to continue to grow as writers.
Assignment
I will
assign each of you three papers to analyze and to "teach" to. Pretend
that three papers are representative of a whole "set" of papers from
a single class. Based on your assigned set, write about 3 pages
(single-spaced; line breaks between paragraphs), with three parts:
Part I.
Context
Identify the
various mitigating factors that may be affecting student writers' performance
in your assigned set of papers: the assignment, the teacher's pedagogy, past
school experiences, students' home languages, cultural (dis)connect, etc. -- but
only those factors that seem important to
students' performance. No need to describe the context if nothing seems
particular relevant to how the writer may have responded to and perform on this
particular paper.
II. Analysis (please do not talk about larger issues like
organization, thesis, development, voice, etc.) THINK
POSITIVE. READ WITH YOUR ROSE-COLORED GLASSES, AS IF YOU WERE READING FAULKNER
OR YOUR FAVORITE WRITER. You're not going on an error hunt; you're simply
describing what you see on the page: i.e. the major sentence types (e.g.,
simple, compound, complex); syntactic structures (e.g., appositive, direct
address, participle phrases, etc.), and anything else (e.g., attempt to use
semicolons, rhetorical repetition, variety of sentence length, etc.)
Remember: a sometimes-right/sometimes-wrong pattern/convention generally tells
you that the writer is experimenting--and so may be ready for a minilesson on
that particular issue. More specifically,
o FOR EACH
PAPER, describe the
dominant sentence-level patterns, supporting your descriptions with
examples cited from your assigned set of papers.
o FOR EACH
PAPER, hypothesize what
the possible logic is behind those patterns/issues; and
o FOR THE
WHOLE "SET," synthesize
what you're seeing across the three papers (as much as possible), identifying a
key pattern you'd like to address in a minilesson, justifying your choices.
III. Minilesson
Explain your minilesson (a
very short lesson, the instructional input of which might last up to 10
minutes) telling us how you would focus on a particular pattern/convention, both
verbally and visually (as I have done with our mnemonics on the side-board).
More specifically,
o address one or two patterns/issues evident in at least one
of the papers but would nonetheless be useful to or would involve all the
writers in your assigned papers. Justify your choice briefly. STAY FOCUSED on the one concept so young writers can target
what they're looking for and working on in their own writing.
o use authentic texts for
the student activity, such as positive examples of student writing and/or
professional writing--not a workbook or a set of sentences.
o describe
the follow-through activity you would use to give your students guided practice with this pattern/convention in class.
o specify what you will have students do as independent practice outside of class after the
minilesson and guided practice to insure that the minilesson transfers into their own writing.
Format
Please write
up as an essay, with these sub-headings:
Part I.
Context
blah blah
blah
Part II.
Analysis
Paper 1: blah blah blah
Paper 2: blah blah blah
Paper 3: blah blah blah
Part III.
Minilesson
blah blah
blah
Save your
file in RICH TEXT FORMAT (rtf).
Name your
file: firstnamelastinitial.rtf.
Zap to
bjmonroe@wsu.edu via email.
Due
Tuesday
after Thanksgiving, Nov. 30, 11:59 pm
Rubric
1. Your
paper meets all the requirements of the assignment.
2. You
describe rather than prescribe; you avoid judgmental language, like
"students are writing way below grade level"; your posture is to meet
student writers where they are and help them grow from there.
3. Your
analysis is accurate, well-supported with cited examples from your assigned set
of papers, thoughtful, and thorough.
4. You know
your grammar and conventions; you are clearly comfortable with the concepts
you're discussing; you can explain the concepts clearly, using grammatical
and/or nongrammatical terms.
5. Your
lesson shows your pedagogical chops, demonstrating that you've mastered the
methodology advocated (and demonstrated) in this course: exposure, explanation,
experiment.
6. Your own
sentence structure is textured with brush strokes; your verb choices are vivid;
and your sentences are varied in length.