Voice

Ruth Culham

“Voice…..the sense that a real person is speaking to you and cares about the message. It is the heart and soul of the writing the magic, the wit, the feeling…..”

What Peace Means to MeSaid Mohamed, 4th grade

I came from Somalia. There was a war there. People were getting hurt. Bombs were dropping. I could hear guns. At night they woke me up. Two of my brothers were fighting in the war. One brother was nineteen and one brother was twenty-six. They both got killed. One night the bad guys came into our house. We ran out the back. They stole my mom’s jewelry. My uncle wanted to stay and fight, but my dad told him, “No!” We went to Ethiopia to get away. Sometimes we rode in a truck, or on camels or we walked. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see bad things. We never went back to our house in Somalia. After one year we came to America. I hope they never have a war in America. People need to show love. That is PEACE!

September 26—

On September 26, 1774, John Chapman was born. Later in life, he became better known as Johnny Appleseed. Johnny performed a community service as he traveled west spreading apple seeds. Write about some types of community service that you could possibly perform.

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/index.htm

Daily Writing Prompts

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/index.htm

Daily Writing Prompts• March 30 On this day in 1858, the patent for a pencil with an attached eraser was

issued. Taking your pencil’s point of view, what do you think a typical day in your classroom would be like?

• March 21 Today is “Children’s Poetry Day.” Using your favorite form of poetry, write a poem about what it means to be a kid. Think about the advantages and disadvantages.

• March 16 On this day in 1751, our 4th President, James Madison was born. Madison was the oldest of twelve (12) children. What do you think would be the advantages and/or disadvantages of having eleven (11) siblings? Would you like to have eleven younger brothers and sisters?

• March 8March 8th is “Working Women’s Day.” Many people feel that being a stay-at-home-mom is full-time job. Do you agree or disagree and why?

• March 6 On this day in 1912, Oreo Cookies were sold for the first time. Describe to someone how you like to eat your Oreo.

More writing prompts….You can post your response (750 words or fewer) on the site.

• Write a made-up magic spell, including ingredients, chants, and actions. Now, turn it into a poem.

• Pretend that there is a small man/woman operating the control system of your brain. Write about your day from his/her perspective. How does he/she feel about you?

• One day you wake up to find your dog/cat waiting for you at the side of your bed, sitting on your briefcase. Cocking its head, it tells you, in perfect English, that you won’t be going to work today. Why won’t your pet let you go to work, and what happens?

• You're late for work because you overslept, but your boss hates over-sleepers. He does love entertaining stories, so create the most outlandish excuse as to why you were late.

www.writersdigest.com/WritingPrompts/•

Save the Last Word for Me(Dialogue Journals)

Locate five statements or quotations that you find interesting as a reader. Write the statement or quote in your journal or on one side of an index card. Then, write your comments or questions about the statementon the back side of the index card or in your journal. Share the quote in your small group inviting others to addtheir thoughts. Do not share your thinking until everyone in your group has given a reaction.

Bloom’s Choice Board

Create a concentration game based on 10

activities. Use pictures and words.

Make a map for an ideal downtown that including the places learned in this

unit.

Write a “conjugation” poem including all forms

of the verb “IR”.

Design a mobile showing a place and all the

activities related to that place. Write a sentence to describe each card.

Compose a song to teach the -AR verb

endings. Teach it to the class.

Describe some activities you do on a typical

Saturday. Be sure to give your opinions.

Find a map of a city that speaks the target language. Locate

various places and write a description saying what

you do there.

Recite the days of the week and say what you

normally do on two different days.

Compare and contrast what you do on a school day versus a weekend

day.

Bloom’s Choice Board

rememberingunderstanding

applyinganalysing

evaluatingcreating

applyinganalysing

evaluatingcreating

rememberingunderstanding

evaluatingcreating

rememberingunderstanding

applying analysing

http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

Conventions

Ruth Culham

“Students in classes where conventions are valued over everything else get a distorted view of writing…Effective writing classrooms are places where there is a balance between creating interesting, informative, imaginative texts, and editing those texts for conventions.”

I live in St. Charles I came here by myself 1 year and 5 month ago. My family is in Korea. I came here to study English. Before coming to St. Louis. I used to live in Seoul, Korea. I wanted to come to US from before to learn English and enjoy my different life. Since I came here, I really enjoyed doing somethings and going new places. I’ll go back to Korea end of this month.

ELL Adult Sample

Dear neighbors. We are your new neighbors. Me. Haibo and my wife Donghua. We are from China, and have been in America for 2 years but in St. Louis, just 2 months. Before moved to St. Louis, we lived on University of Missouri – Columbia campus. My wife graduated and found a job here, so we moved here at the end of last year. As Chinese, we like Chinese food very much, but not America football and we do not have kids, so we should be quite. Because of the methods of Chinese cooking, there may be some smoke and smell in and around our apartment, if you feel uncomfortable, just let us know, we will maintain it as little as we can. Le me tell you about moving. When we prepared the lugages to America we found that it is very hard to put everything we need into two 32 lb boxes which are maximum lugages each passenger can carry. But at the to move to St. Louis we are surprised how we could get so many stuffs in two year. Fortunately, my wife got more fenifit from the new job, so we hired a moving company to help us, which made work easier. In the future years, my wife hope she can get good performance in her job, and can attain her PhD. Degree. I will be a graduate student in UMSL, and we hope we can have a baby next year. Best regards,

Laura Terrill

Great Art of France: Virtual Visits

Elle s’appelle Mona Lisa. Elle a 32 ans. Elle n’est pas jolie, mais elle n’est pas laide, non plus. Elle a les cheveux longs, pas noirs, pas blonds......

What happened?

Yesterday – Today - Tomorrow

What is happening?

What willhappen?

Déçu à ParisI traveled to Paris.

You wrote me a letter before you arrrived.

My friend also came to Paris.

We visited the city.

You ate well that evening, but not me, I was sick.

My friends had a good time, but I slept in the hotel.

Structured WritingsConsider the difference……

Comment on a current event:

Include: Include:

• a verb that uses “avoir”• a verb that uses “être”• a reflexive verb• two adjectives• two connectors

• explain what has happened•comment on what is happening• predict what will happen under different circumstances•end by giving your thoughts on what should happen

Presentation

Ruth Culham

“It takes a great deal of effort to overlook a piece’s visual problems and respond to its ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. How the paper looks influences our reaction to it, no matter how hard we try to keep it from creeping into our overall assessment.”

Process Tools

Audience and Identity Blogging, social network sites

Writing processes Word processing software, Google Docs

Prewriting and researching Mapping and outlining tools, visualization tools like Wordle.net, Bubbl.us, RSS feeds for research, social bookmarking tools like Diigo

Freewriting and collecting Private blogs, twitter accounts, personal journals

Drafting Word processing, wikis which automatically track changes

Revising Highlighting and commenting tools like voicethread, Google docs

Editing Word processing applications – grammar and spell checkers

Publishing Blogs, Web sites, wikis, profile pages, podcasts, digital stories

Multigenre and multimodal writing

Web site creation, slideshow software, digital movie

Electronic portfolio Wikis

A Sampler of Writing Process Strategies as Enhanced by Digital Tools

Adapted from Because Digital Writing Matters

Second-Graders Hone Writing Skills With Twitter

The AP (3/12) reports, "Twitter, the online social networking service that's become popular with celebrities and politicians, is linking second-grade classes in two Maine towns." The students in "Mrs. White's class in Orono" have "been Twittering for about a month with Mr. Thompson's class in Greene, exchanging messages that can't exceed 140 characters." According to WCSH-TV Portland, ME (3/12, Matuszewski) "The classes started exchanging messages, known as Tweets, mid-February." Students write most of their own messages, but, occasionally, the class will write messages as a group. Through the exercise, students learn "lessons in grammar, spelling, math...online security, and digital citizenship."

http://novastartalk.nvcc.edu/

piclits.com

glogster.com

http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/572

http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/572

http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/572

titatok.com

Downloaded books are $2.99.

www.betterthanworksheets.com/home/test

wallwisher.comexample provided by Julie Hoyt

Assessment vs. Evaluation

Formative vs. Summative

We destroy the love of learning in children, which is so strong when

they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty

rewards--gold stars, or papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall,

or A's on report cards, or honor rolls, or dean's lists or Phi Beta Kappa

keys--in short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are

better than someone else.

~John Holt

Required for an “A”

Feedback

• The most powerful single modification that enhances achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for improving education must be ‘dollops of feedback’.

• The manner in which feedback is communicated to students greatly affects whether it has a positive or negative effect on student achievement.

John Hattie, Measuring the effects of schooling. Australian Journal of Education 1992

A Brief Review of the Research on Classroom Assessment

• Feedback from classroom assessments should give students a clear picture of their progress on learning goals and how they might approve.

• Feedback on classroom assessments should encourage students to improve.

• Classroom assessment should be formative in nature.

• Formative classroom assessments should be frequent.

Adapted from Robert J. MarzanoClassroom Assessment & Grading that Work

Fluency, Accuracy, and Complexity in Graded and Ungraded Writing

Kimberly M. Armstrong — Franklin & Marshall CollegeForeign Language Annals - vol. 43, No. 4, Winter 2010

Findings suggested that grades had little effect on student writing, and therefore more frequent and more varied ungraded writing assignments may be a productive pedagogical tool for improving the form and content of student writing.

Reducing Composition Errors: An ExperimentJohn F. Lalande, II University of Missouri

Foreign Language Annals - vol. 17, No. 2, Winter 2008reprinted from The Modern Language Journal, 66 (1982)

Several implications for the classroom teacher of German and perhaps of other modern foreign languages emerge from this study. These implications are: 1) the development of writing skills of students at the intermediate level of foreign language study can be favorably affected through the use of appropriate techniques; 2) systematic scoring of compositions should be the rule rather than the exception at the intermediate level; 3) since the affective disposition of students is not adversely affected by total correction of written errors, and since students can be made aware of deficiencies in linguistic competence, teachers should consider seriously the adoption of a policy of total correction of written errors; 4) students should receive instructional feedback on their essays…..

Composition Correction Reference SheetThe error chart lists codes for your writing errors. You will use the codes and the samples provided to assess and correct the mistakes that you made in yourcomposition.

Code Explanation Sample

1. sp Spelling mistake spJ’aime bein (bien)

2. s/v Subject and verb need to agree

s/vOù est-ce que tu habite? (habites)

3. n Noun / adjective agreement

nJ’adore le petite chien noir. (petit)

4. mMood – use indicative or subjunctive correctly

mIl faut que tu fais tes devoirs. (fasses)

Composition Correction Chart

Use this chart to keep track of the number and type of errors that you made in each composition. Your goal is to continue to reduce the number of errors that you make in each category.

Establish a Common Language About Conventions

Developed by Parkway School District

Closure

• ABC….Summarize

• Brainstorm round a word

• Apple Save

Are you suffering from

Stressed

spelled backwards.

Laura Terrill

Laura TerrillWorld Language / ELL Consultant

8529 Stark DriveIndianapolis, IN 46216

Cell: 314-369-9678Home: 317-546-2626

Email: lterrill@gmail.comlauraterrill.wikispaces.com