Writing with Expanders... it's that easy!

If you've ever looked at a 4th graders sentence construction, at the beginning of the year, you'd notice they are pretty basic.  Subject, predicate, an adjective or two, and maybe a prepositional phrase... but don't hold your breath.  As a fourth grade writing teacher, I'd love to have all of my students coming to me with a better vocabulary, and more detailed sentence structure.... alas, this is not reality.  Reality is that it falls to the fourth grade teacher to teach the writing skills needed to pass the ever so controversial Writing STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) test. 

For those of you who haven't heard, the TAKS test is being replaced with the STAAR test this spring 2012.  The STAAR test, we are being told, (though we know little about it just yet, as TEA has not released any sample test questions) is being designed to become more rigorous and promote higher level thinking skills.  "Rigor".... is the new "it" word being thrown around in educational circles these days.  What is "rigor"?  Here is the definition I found in Webster’s Dictionary, "a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable".  Seems a little extreme to me, but I don't see TEA coming to my classroom to ask my opinion anytime soon.  Thus... my challenge begins!  AND... like every year before, I will take this challenge and tweak my lesson plans to include higher level thinking.  But, one thing I won't change is the concept of teaching Expanders, which is a program written and designed by Victoria Green of the Written Expression series in Project Read. 

Take a minute to reflect upon your own experiences as a young writer.  If I had to guess, at one time or another, we've all heard these words, "Your sentences are weak, and you need to add more details."  Did you know what to do when you went back to your desk to revise your paper?  I didn't, and unfortunately, in the early years of my career, I was just as guilty of giving my students the same response to kids who didn't write with details.  Luckily, I was introduced to Expanders!  I love using expanders with my kids because as I conference with my students, I can promote higher level thinking by asking specific questions.  For example, if my student wrote a story about cats, and had a sentence that read:  The tabby cat ran.   I can stop right at that sentence and say, "Good basic sentence, but I'd love to know more details like, 'Where' the cat ran, or 'How' the cat ran, let's see if we can expand this sentence."  After brainstorming with the student, we might come up with a more detail sentence like this: The tabby cat ran quickly down the alley.  Subsequently, I would ask the student to go back to their desk, and make sure each sentence had at least one expander in it, if not more in order to promote a variety of sentence lengths.  It's that simple!  When they know what to add, it becomes much easier to provide more details.  (See: 'What is an Expander?' under the Parent Resources, to the right of this blog for more information on the use of Expanders)

Looking Ahead:

The coming week will find us diving into 'How' and 'When' Expanders, and attempting to write short paragraphs using a variety of sentence lengths, to express a thought.  Through these exercises, we will also be looking at the basic structure, or "lay out" of a composition:  Introduction, Body, and Conclusion, concentrating on Introductions and the various ways in which we can 'lead' into a story. 

Take a moment to sit with your child and their Writing Composition book.  Ask them to show you what we are working on.  Giving them an opportunity to verbally express what we have been doing in class, will help to reinforce their prior learning.  Just a short 5 minute talk can really make a difference! 

**Side Note** There will be no Spelling the week of 9/26, AND 10/3.  Hmmmm... What was that?  A sigh of relief from my parents?  Well, that would go along with the cheers that I received in class once the kids found out. :)  Instead, we will be working more heavily on our writing skills, and moving into using better Word Choice throughout our stories.  Have a great week-end!