What is oral writing? Well, this week we have focused on learning the two parts of a sentence and the five sentence paragraph all without holding a pen or pencil or touching a keyboard.
The picture below shows the three boys: Julio, Adam, and Cruz (from right to left) using a sentence frame with cards to depict the sentence, “She took a plane to the college.”
Using this sentence building activity each student became proficient with identifying the subject word, the predicate word, and all the articles in a given sentence. Each student went on to compose his own simple and compound sentences using the cards and then speaking his sentence aloud while touching his cards one word at a time. Today, each student built a simple or compound sentence, depending on my prompt, and then dictated that sentence to an iPad using the Dragon Speak app.
We are using the same multi-sensory oral approach for the composition of a five sentence paragraph. Each student receives five colored strips: green for topic sentence, three blues for each supporting sentence, and red for concluding sentence. Today I spoke a topic sentence and the boys each thought of three supporting sentences. For example, I said, “There are three ways I make money.” Each student then took a turn waving his blue strips one at a time as he said something like, “First, I can get paid for doing chores around my house. Second, sometimes a neighbor pays me for taking care of their pets. Finally, in the summer I can mow lawns.” Our DMC oral writing class may not be putting any pen to paper, but we sure are composing up a storm.
- Lauren Geraghty, DMC Tutor and Oral Writing Class Teacher
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