Not edtech related, but sometimes that's okay. With Saint Patrick’s Day just around the corner, I figured what better time than to talk about the way I’ve been teaching body paragraphs to my sixth grade ELA resource room for the past two years. While assembling paragraphs may not be a large struggle, composing them while trying to analyze and embed quotes can be tricky for students. I always felt like the students struggled when it came to putting paragraphs on paper (or in our case, Docs). I tried RACES and it worked for some, but for others it just wasn’t structured enough. For some, each writing session was either met with silence or questions. Last year, as a way to help struggling students structure their writing, I started color-coding the contents of a body paragraph. Each color was associated with a particular piece of the structure and followed a rainbow from red to purple. Red: Topic sentence Orange: Provide context (background information) for the reader Yellow: Quote starter or attributive tag Green: Evidence from the text Blue: Explanation Purple: Conclusion (restate topic sentence in an impactful way) How does it help students?It gives them a place to start. At the beginning of the year they begin to connect the essential parts of a paragraph with the colors. This connection helps them down the road when they need to figure out how to organize their ideas. It also allows them to quickly assess what they’re missing. For example, I had a student look at their body paragraph and conclude they didn’t have any “green” and immediately dove into the text to find supportive evidence. Similarly, it allows them to see the balance required to make an effective body paragraph. Too much evidence and not enough explanation is ineffective and that is something students notice. Looking at mentor paragraphs, their eyes are trained to pull apart all the paragraph pieces. By this point in the year, my students are moving away from just “do I have all the colors?” to asking themselves if they’ve done enough of each. Did they provide enough details in their explanation to show their understanding and prove their thesis? Did they make the information clear for the reader in the context? It starts off as just recognizing contents of a paragraph based on color and moves into a deeper level of understanding of their own writing. Isn't it too structured?There’s always the risk of the “formulaic” writing. “Don’t force students into a box with their writing.” And while I agree, for some students, structure is necessary. I’ve watched students freeze looking at a blank page. I’ve watched those same students jump right into their writing, letting their ideas flow with the rainbow structure. Freely writing, especially for argument or literary analysis essays, seems to make them uncomfortable and unable to express their ideas. The structure gives them a concrete place to start and a direction to take. It doesn’t take away their voice as a writer but instead gives them a structure from which their writing can grow. Eventually, students transition away from it. They begin experimenting with other ways to move around the parts of a paragraph, mixing it up and changing it to fit their style. A student asked me the other day about moving around his evidence because he thought it made more of an impact after a little bit of explanation. I’ve had students play around with their ways to introduce a quote. The structure in the beginning gave them the confidence to take other risks. Students who don't need this structure are not required to use it. Not every child needs it and it's offered as a support. If a student can compose a successful paragraph with confidence without the rainbow structure, they're not required to use it. It's always a choice. Having the skill, though, has been beneficial. Even students who feel comfortable with paragraphs have told me about how they used it in their other content areas to help guide their writing. It's been helpful in assignments where they don't feel as confident. What does it look like?My students use the highlighter tool in Google Docs to highlight their paragraphs. Take a look at some of their work!
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Katie Nieves@Ms_Katie Nieves Archives
December 2017
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