Writing descriptive paragraphs

Unit: Language Arts
Theme: Writing descriptive paragraphs
Lesson Length: 5 days

Objectives: Students will:

• Develop descriptive writing skills.
• Identify elements of a descriptive paragraphs.
• Write a descriptive paragraph that includes a topic sentences, no less than five adjectives, and a closing sentence.

Standard: Writing Expectation: W.8.3 DOK Level: 3

Materials: computer, PowerPoint presentation, board, projector, handouts

Development
Day 1
1. Greet students.
2. Brainstorm about what is a descriptive sentence. Some answers might be: one that says something about a topic; one that tells me how something is, etc.
3. Define what is a descriptive paragraph and its elements.

Day 2
1. Greet students.
2. Recall previous class.
3. Read an example of a descriptive paragraph and identify the elements. ( work on notebook)
4. Explain the "Orange Paragraph Method" for writing a descriptive paragraphs.

Day 3
1. Greet students.
2. Review steps in the Orange Method.
3. Practice exercise: Write a five sentence descriptive paragraph about the school.
4. Share sentences written and create the paragraph.

Days 4 and 5
1. Greet students.
2. Explain the instructions for the special activity and the rubric for evaluating the paragraph to be handed in.
3. Begin to work on the activity: first step: pre-write ideas for their topics. Teacher checks and assigns points.
4. Draft sentences. Students should use the dictionaries and thesaurus to look for descriptive words.Teacher collect drafts for revision.
5. Corrected drafts are returned; student edits and publish the paragraph.

Assessments:
Teacher's observations
Descriptive paragraph rubric
Group interaction
Completed paragraphs

Comments on Peter Elbow articles

Article #1 Using writing in disciplinary, subject-matter courses
Peter Elbow makes a clear distinction of the objectives to teach writing in our classes: to demonstrate what has been learned (high stake writing) and to write for learning (low stake writing) about a subject. According to Elbow, writing to learn is less used and enforced by teachers and students. This kind of writing allows students to construct their learning experience and to freely express their ideas, hence demonstrating that knowledge is being acquired. Low stake writing do not enforce formal grading of written work, rather it emphasizes and promotes content. The recommendations given are very useful because they promote different kinds of writing and different circumstances to use them. I specially liked his recommendation of using the last five minutes of the class to have students reflect on what they learned that day, in this way the next class should focus on the areas not fully understood by them.

Article #2 Benefits of low stakes writing (Writing to Learn)
The list of benefits for using low stake writing in the classroom presented by Elbow in this article really motivates us to try some of his recommendations . Students can use their own "personal" language as a way to express in writing their ideas and what they have learned. This gives the students the opportunity to express themselves knowing that they will not be graded based on how accurate, in terms of grammar and language mechanics, their written work is, but on the content, on the ideas they want to convey. Even when grading is not required when using low stake writing, I would read and comment on the work presented by the students. This will make them aware of what needs to be corrected and/or improved and will show that their participation and interest in learning is valued.

Comments on videos

Tecnologia o Metodologia
Although a very funny representation, it shows a very sad reality in our schools: we keep using the same old teaching methods to teach our students even when we have technology tools to change them. The truth is that the use of technology itself does not means that the school is going to be a modern school, nor the integration of technology into our classrooms represents we will be better teachers. There must be a change in our teaching paradigms, a new way to focus our teaching strategies as to make them effective and productive for our students and for us.


Taylor Mali on What teachers make
Teachers' contributions in the formation of a person is seldom appreciated and recognized. We teach because we want to impact another life ; we want our students to be able to grow and develop as useful and responsible persons. We want to make them aware that is is in their hands that the future of our lives will be since they will eventually be the doctors, nurses, caretakers of us, the aging sector in our society. I want my students to feel proud of who they are, to love our country and be responsible for their life and those who surround them. We teachers make the whole blessed difference!!!!!!

A comment on A proposal for a taxonomy of ESL Writing Strategies

This research focuses in the development of a taxonomy of ESL writing strategies. According to the various researchers presented by Congjun Mu, author of this research, although there were various writing strategies, they have not been properly classified. The taxonomy of ESL writing strategies proposed by the author presented five major categories:
1. communicative strategies- needed to express ideas in an effective way
2. rethorical strategies- use to organize ideas
3. meta-cognitive strategies- use to create paragraph conventions (i.e. beginning, cohesion, coherence, ending)
4. cognitive strategies- use to generate, revise, elaborate and summarize ideas
5. social/affective strategies- encompasses the ones use to interact with other people; resourcing and gathering feedback from others to gain support.

I found very interesting the fact that the use of the vernacular language (L1) is one of the strategies used (rethorical strategies) to properly convey the ideas in the written work.