Dear Mom and Dad A college student’s letter home

A thoughtless person does not think about the feelings of other people.

Think- present tense

A thought is what you get when you think, such as an idea or concept.

thought+less means without thinking

Thoughtless

Thoughtful Thoughtless

Happy Birthday! She forgot about our date!

A friend who remembers your birthday is thoughtful.

A friend who does not think or care about your feelings is thoughtless.

Up to dateUp to now,To this point,So far,Hasta la fecha

Skull Fracture- a break in the bony framework of the skull

Injury to the brain by a hard hit or accident

Concussion

Everything is OK. Everything is fine. I am doing well.

I am getting along

To welcome someone with open arms

Open arms

Tolerance means accepting others the way they are.

In the first part of the dictation fill in the blanks with the words you hear.

If you do not know how to spell a word just spell it the best you can.

Please do not ask questions during the dictation, just concentrate on listening and writing.

You will be working with your partner on the right to correct and discuss the dictation when we are finished with part I.

Then, you will finish the rest of the letter by filling in the blanks your partner.

Dictation Guidelines

1. What was the purpose of this letter?

2. Do you think that Susan’s letter put the “D” and “F” in perspective (the big picture)? How would you tell your parents something that you know will upset them?

3. Can you think of a time where you had to prepare someone for the hard truth? What did you have to tell them, and how did you prepare them?

Discussion Questions- Think, Pair, Share

Write a letter back to Susan from her parents

Be sure to use a greeting and a closing

Refer to her letter as appropriate OR Tell of a time when you had to prepare

someone for bad news and describe how you handled it. Was your method effective?

Writing Prompt

How can we stimulate discussion and give structured support to ESL

students learning to write in different genres?

Kathleen Taylor

Partial- Cloze, Could be idioms, verbs, etc. Pair- Students work in pairs to combine two-part texts

into one continuous speech. One student has a copy of dictation “Student A,”

and the other student has dictation “Student B”.Student A dictates and Student B writes, then B dictates

and A writes.Dictogloss-the focus is getting the main idea or focusPrediction- Great as a Anticipation GuideNote Taking- students write down information they think

is importantTeacher or student created to fit what you want to teach!

Types of Dictation

Interactive Dictations by Judy DeFilippo and Catherine Sadow

Dictations for Discussion by Judy DeFilippo and Catherine Sadow

Resources