Revision: How can students make a paper better by looking at parts of speech?

[Amy Webber]

I team teach second grade with a class population of 50 percent ESL. I really enjoy teaching at a school where the population is diverse and a little more challenging. Our daily schedule includes a 30-minute writing block. I get many lessons from WritingFix.com, and usually adjust them a bit (revamp the graphic organizers to make them second grader friendly). I use mentor texts and art projects for inspiration of other writing lessons. One successful practice is implementation of the writing process. At the beginning of the year, the first couple of writing projects were taught one step at a time (i.e.-Monday: prewrite, Tuesday: draft, and so on). Once the process was secure, the students were able to work at their own pace within the writing process.

My demonstration will focus on revision. I wanted to focus on revision because many students, especially second graders, think revision is just writing with nicer penmanship. I want the students to realize that it is ok to change the original piece. Initially, my idea was to highlight dead verbs and rewrite those sentences using action verbs. After implementing that in the classroom though, I am now considering a slight change. My students and I worked with dead vs. action verbs, and after looking at the “revised” drafts, I did not notice much change. So now I may "revise" my demonstration idea and add other parts of speech into the revision process. Start with adjectives and see where that takes me.

[Mary Lynn]

Hi Amy
Sounds very interesting to me. My demo is on revision also, however, as I am sure you've found, the topic is huge. I know working with the ELL populations (10 years at Sierra Vista), has helped me to adapt and modify for all different kinds and levels of learners. Just writing that first "sloppy copy" draft is really tough for my third graders who are at a kindergarten or first grade reading level . Many of these students are ELL and/or Sped. I want to learn some ways to make revision more inviting for my kids. I have been reading Lucy Calkin's "Primary Series" books and have found some basic lessons on revision, which are good for my kids at K-1 levels, but want to research and find some more interesting lessons for my students at 2-6 grade reading levels. I am looking forward to your demo and discussing this more!
Mary

[Amy Webber]

I am still wondering what books to read outside of the two that we got on May 2. Would you recommend that I read a Lucy Calkin's book? Since you are doing revision as well, maybe you could point me in a direction...
:)