Tricks

My Co-teaching classroom has been one of the highlights of my day of late.  I'm feeling quite pleased with a supported writing project I did with a few students this week.  I was rewarded for my efforts by hearing students prompting each other about the elements of a "GREAT" paragraph.  (Our school's framework for citing evidence.) 

Another big pay off came along yesterday.  During a whole group situation with my partner teacher leading paragraph writing on the board, I interrupted because I noticed that many students hadn't indented.  (Did I interrupt the flow of writing to talk conventions?  Yes, in this case I did.  Here's why.  First, the quicker you notice a student needs to indent the less stressed they are about it.  Second, paragraphs have a certain shape.  That shape includes an indent at the first line.  If someone glances at a boxy paragraph with no indent, the first thing they might think is:  this kid doesn't know what a paragraph is, before even reading a word! Since these students' work will be read throughout the year by other teachers and eventually by state test readers, it's important to me that they make a great first impression.  So, of course we are working on the big ideas like, making a claim, citing evidence, word choice, transition, etc.  But, the details like format, handwriting and spelling are also crucial to a reader's perception of the writing.)  (Please notice that I don't indent my paragraphs on this blog.)

Anyway, I interrupted and remarked that some students hadn't indented.  And noticed that the teacher hadn't indented either ~ I wasn't calling him out, he was just writing the words on the board and they were all over the place, just for the kids to see the sentences.  I said, "Don't worry, I have a trick for that!"  A kid blurted out, "You have a trick for everything!"  Yessssss!  I'm the strategy lady, the tricks with learning teacher, the here's-how-you-make-it-work-for-you person in the room.  That is actually a big part of what I'm doing here and it seems like at least one student noticed!  Yesssss!  Total satisfaction on my part.

The trick is, just erase the first three words and re-write them just a teensy bit smaller so you have room for an indent.  Students who struggle with writing HATE to erase any of their hard-fought work so I try to help them avoid it at all costs.  No one has to erase and re-write the whole sentence or group of sentences they've already written, not stress.  

After I told the kids the trick, many of them did it and my co teacher modeled it very nicely on the board.