Helping Students Write Sensational Sentences

Sensational Sentences

Helping students understand the importance of creating good, descriptive sentences, especially when describing characters, settings, or important events in a story, can be like pulling teeth or even getting a person to walk into the dentist's office in the first place.

To help students with this, I begin my lesson on improving sentence construction, variety, and description, by telling students that I have a picture of an "awesome cat" in my hands and go on to use what I call "garbage words" to continue describing this cat as the "best" and most "amazing" cat ever. Then, I ask each student to draw a picture of this amazing, awesome cat and what they think it looks like.

The obvious "ah-ha" of this lesson introduction is that no two pictures will look the same, and when I show them the actual picture of this "amazing" cat, it will also look nothing like what they have drawn.

Hence, the lead in to using good descriptions to describe exactly what our readers to envision when they are reading our stories.

I usually incorporate this lesson after allowing students to write an exposition for a creative story they are working on in class. I allow them to first write about their character, setting, and problem before introducing this lesson.

Now, I give each student a five room brainstorming chart, where I ask them to place the name of their protagonist (main character) in the center box and then in the other boxes describe, in each box respectively, what the character looks like, sounds like, acts like, and thinks like. I of course model this with a familiar character from a recent book we have read, so students can contribute and participate.

One character I like to use is Billy from Where the Red Fern Grows.

Here is an example of four "simple sentences" from our five room brainstorm chart, based on student responses.

"LOOKS: He has blonde hair."
ACTS: "He is determined."
THINKS: "He thinks about God alot."
SOUNDS: "He sounds like a boy."

Now these are all simple sentences, and we work to turn these into sensational sentences by trying to take a "SNAPSHOT" of each sentence and visualize it first in our mind and then describe what we are "seeing" in a new, interesting way that will help our readers better understand what we are seeing.

To help students with this, I take out a photo album from a recent vacation trip to Disney and use some of my favorite pictures to illustrate this by using descriptive language and sensational sentences to describe each picture, before showing it to them. Then I see if my description gave them a good mental image of the picture in their minds. With practice, it always does.

Now I start with the simple sentences we came up with.
The first is "he has blonde hair." Well, what does this mean, what exactly does blonde hair look like. Using the students in my classroom, I point out the different shades and colors of blonde and use them to explain what happens if they stay in the sun a lot in the summer (it usually gets lighter).
Now, using what we know from the story, we know Billy spends a lot of time outdoors, and I use this to help generate a better sensational sentence to describe his hair.

Some examples of student sensational sentences, with some guidance from me:
"It was obvious that the summer sun had kissed his usual straw colored hair."
"His hair shone in the sun like the beaches of a tropical island."

These sentences are much more visual and pleasing to the reader, and you cannot help but automatically visualize this boy in your mind, and at the same time smile at your own memories of running around in the summer as a child.

Now, consider the next sentence about how the character acts.
The "simple sentence" is "He is determined." Well, what does it mean to be determined? I ask the students for examples of how he was determined in the story, and ask them to extend their thinking by telling me about how they have acted determined before. Now that we understand what determined means, and have listed some examples of determined actions as a class, we develop a sensational sentence to describe his determination.

Some example of student sensational sentences, with guidance from me:
"He was as determined as a hawk with his eye on a field mouse."
"He was like a mother, not budging by her child's meaningless temper tantrum, intent on teaching them a lesson."

I let students work on the remaining sentences on their own, and compare their sentences in small groups, helping each other develop the very best they can do based on how I helped and guided them. Then, we share and write the sentences out on chart paper as examples.

An additional tip for effective writing:
Consider a round robin activity for helping students think "outside the box" about sensational descriptions, especially in emotions (which I have found are hardest for students). Many students simply say the character was happy, or sad, or angry, which are all "garbage" words in my classroom and are not allowed in my classroom. We work to throw these words out of our writing in my classroom, hence the term "garbage" words.
To help, I put an emotion word at the top of a piece of paper, "HAPPY", "SAD", "ANGRY", "SCARED", "EMBARRASSED". Then I do a round robin where each student starts with a paper with a different word on it.  The challenge: they must think of a way to describe the emotion by telling me what they do or how they act when they feel this emotion. For example, for happy, some responses might be "smiling from ear to ear", "feeling jumpy, not able to stand still", etc.
No one is allowed to put the same thing down, so they must read through and think of a new way to describe it. We do this until they have written something for each emotion at least twice, then I post this in the classroom for students to refer to. That way, when they come to me with a story and I see one of these "garbage" words, I can refer them to the chart. As the year goes on, students automatically go to the charts to help them improve their writing, and even add on to it as they come up with new ways to describe their emotions. 

The Building Blocks of Writing A Story

Literacy is a struggle in America today, it is no secret. We place relatively low in comparison to other developed nations around the world when it comes to our student's literacy rates. As a teacher, one of the most difficult areas of teaching to master is writing. Some teachers are excellent writers and their students love their sample stories, but continually struggle with helping students develop the same "expectation". Many a colleague of mine have thrown their hands up in frustration reading through a writing journal selection of student work on a recent piece, confused, upset, and irritated that students still didn't "get" it. The temptation always looms to fix the mistakes or "improve" through additions, but we all know as educators that this leads to little, if any, internalized improvement of behalf of the student.
I ran into this very same problem, too. Then, I came across two excellent resources one summer, referred to me by an educator whom I consider to be a master in teaching writing, and consequently the second grade teacher who hooked me on writing as well. The first was Teaching for Deep Understanding, an indespensible resource for understanding the reading-writing connection and its implementations in the classroom, and The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever, a step-by-step guide to building mastery in writing skills for children at any level.

As a result of these two books, I developed an approach to writing that showed significant, lasting improvement among all students in my classes. First, writing is a subject that is often shoved aside in the elementary classroom, placed on the back burner of formal instruction. many teachers believe students are always writing, so they count that toward their hours. Writing requires meticulous, step-by-step learning and instruction, and can be very tedious and time consuming.

I begin each year in my classroom with an activity. I give a small group of students a brown paper bag full of laminated words. What students do not know is that each bag actually contains one page from a very familiar children's fairy tale, which I have made copies of, laminated, and cut into individual words. All the bags contain a total of 4 sentences. The challenge for students is to take their words and create a story that makes sense, and I tell them in the end they should have four complete sentences.
After completing this, I then pull out a large chart that explains how a story is created. We begin with words, and use those words to build sentences, and then combine those sentences in an appropriate manner that lets the story flow and make sense, and ultimately we create pages, chapters and whole books. I then begin to analyze the chart with what students have in front of them. First words, students are asked what words they used to help build their sentences. Students always pick nouns, places, or events.  This always wonderfully translates over into the basic parts of a story, characters, setting, and plot. Students are amazed to realize that their brains automatically, just from reading, know the parts of a story and how a story needs to be constructed.

It is at this point in the series of lessons that I pull out my three-dimensional story mountain. It is literally a mountain made out of foamboard, and complete with different leveled platforms labeled Exposition, Conflict/Problem, Rising Action, Climax,  Falling Action, and Resolution. I also have a hiker dressed for adventure, complete with a backpack and fishing pole.

Now that students understand how stories are made from words, I have each student group read aloud their page of the story they have created, and written on a piece of paper. We then begin to place each page into its proper sequence and order in the story. I have created this lesson so that each page corresponds with one part of the story, so that the first page describes the exposition, the second page describes the introduction of the problem and story conflict, etc.

Now that we have a full story composed, I walk my hiker through the story, using various visual cues along the way. The hiker begins his journey by packing all the things he will need for his journey in his backpack, and catches a fish to eat for food. I relate this to the "hook" sentence of the story, where a writer interests, or hooks the reader, in the first sentence of the story and then introduces us to all the information we will need for the story, including the main characters (protagonist and antagonist) and the setting. Then the hiker moves to the conflict or problem. In my mountain, this is a rain cloud that forms over the head of the hiker. I relate this to the story problem after introducing students to types of conflict (person vs. person, self, nature, society) and we make correlations. Then, the hiker moves on to the rising action, where in my mountain he begins to build a tent or shelter to protect himself form the rain. The first is made of straw, the second of twigs, the third of stones and boulders (again showing that often the character tries to solve his problem many times before being successful). In the third step, it begins to rain, and just when it seems all is lost, the hiker reaches the top of the mountain (the climax) where his problem is solved and the conflict is faced. He had his stone boulder shelter and is safe from the rain. As always, we discuss this correlation to our completed story. The falling action in my mountain involved the rain cloud first getting sad and leaving, then the hiker happy and in a field of flowers enjoying the view. The resolution comes as he returns to his home, a prop I have made, and is excited to tell of his adventures and what he learned on the mountain.

This lesson is followed up with a group reading and a pair-share reading where students will complete a graphic organizer story mountain about the different parts of their story to solidify their understanding.

This entire lesson usually takes about a week of 45 minutes class periods to do, but I never rush it as this is the building block of understanding for the rest of the year. As students compose short stories, they use the mountain to walk us through their stories. I purposely have students in the beginning of the year write each part of their story on separate pieces of paper to help them understand the different parts and make sure they have included all the elements of an exciting story.If they do not have six pages, they know they have more work to do.

Another side-tip: Have students skip lines (place an x on every other line as a general rule when writing), that way students and teacher have a place to revise, edit, and make other changes to their stories without having to jamb it into a margin or in between words or sentences. Also, try to use a different color when revising or editing for clarity.

Intrinsically Motivating Homework

For many children, the worst part of school is not being in school itself, it is having to lug home a backpack full of worksheets, textbooks, reading books, and notebooks to complete homework. For children, it often seems like they never get away from the grip of their teacher and the endless process of learning. As an educator, I have come to embrace this reality, as I too once felt the same way.

Think about this for a moment, imagine yourself back in school. The teacher has just assigned three math book pages on fractions for homework. Begrudgingly you carry your notebook and textbook home and after a quick snack, sit down to tackle what seems like an endless mountain of math problems. After a while, the problems blend together, you lose focus, and become frustrated, eventually racing through the last page, regardless of whether it is right or not, at least you can tell your parents it is done and hope they don't check it.

Now, think about an alternative. The teacher completes a math lesson on fractions, and you feel confident in the material and are actually happy because you get it. Now, the teacher poses a challenge to you. Handing you a small ziplock baggie with a number, an index card, and a paper attached to it that says “Fraction Exhibition” at the top, he places you in charge. He explains that each student will be challenged with coming up with an exhibition for a fraction museum to be held tomorrow, and then tells you that several other grades in the school will be visiting. Can you feel the adrenaline and excitement already? But beyond that, he tells you that you have to come up with a fraction problem to add to the exhibition. He projects onto the whiteboard at the front of the room a picture of an “award winning exhibition” from last year, an ice cream sundae stand, with six different flavors of ice cream. The teacher then explains that this student, number 5, decided to ask students to create a fraction to show how many possibilities of ice cream there were compared to their favorite or top selections. A group of third grade students held up their fractions in the picture, all with the same denominator and varying numbers for the numerator. The clincher – students got a sampling of their fraction creations afterward. Suddenly, your student brain is racing with possible ways to top this winner from last year, thinking about how to make it better. Suddenly, without realizing it, you are home shuffling through closets, drawers, cabinets, looking for items. Your mother all but has to force you to sit at the table for dinner, where you complain and whine that you have homework to do.

Seem impossible to envision a student or any child doing this? Welcome to the world of intrinsically motivating homework. Developed from an excellent book that should be in every teacher's arsenal, Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs,  I devised this "out of the box" approach to homework by saying enough of the textbooks and dittos and worksheets. Did we as an adult population learn this way? Yes. Was it effective? Yes... for us. Brain-based research currently suggests that student brains are not processing information on the same plane as they once were. An overexposure to media, the Internet, video games, and television is thought by many to be rewiring the way some children actually think. Children are born and raised to think critically, to problem solve. Look at any video game on the market today, and you will see what I mean. When a child is given a rote memorization worksheet or review sheet, their brain becomes bored. But, give them a chance to let them problem solve and work through their learning... that is a whole different ball game.Today's children thrive on continued novelty exposure, as pointed out in an article by Dr. Kathie Nunley entitled Keeping Pace With Today's Quick Brains.

As an educator and master teacher, I have continually veered away from the book and found new and creative ways for students to show me their learning. Textbooks and workbooks will always be required and necessary to build foundational skills, but once skills are mastered, this is the time to begin letting students think outside the box and apply their learning. In my own classroom, I have seen intrinsically motivating homework assignments appeal to not only my gifted students, but also to those with severe cognitive impairments. One year, while doing this Fraction Museum assignment, a gifted student came in with a very elaborate PowerPoint presentation that allowed students to use her laptop to manipulate shapes and colors to represent fractional parts. That same year, a student classified with severe emotional disturbances and learning deficits, requiring the assistance of two classroom aides, came in with a guitar and had students create fractions by listening carefully to the pitch or note he played and its frequency. For example, how many times out of 10 did students hear the same note played. I was happily astounded and taken back. His passion in life was music, and as a teacher this sudden revelation to me resulted in a much better relationship with the student, as it allowed me to appeal lessons to him through song or rhythm.

In addition to the sense of autonomy that students develop from intrinsically motivation homework it also allows the teacher to naturally, and with minimal effort, differentiate. Allowing students the opportunity to take the upper hand and experiment in their personal learning styles and comfort zones of expression, lends itself to differentiated instruction at its best. Gifted students will naturally develop wonderfully insightful and creative projects, while struggling students will often flourish under the feelings of confidence they develop through successful projects they have control over. It is an example of not only differentiating the product, but also the process.

In the end, students also see the multitude of approaches to learning exhibited by each student. One area of struggle for many teacher, both veteran and novice, is how to provide students a rich sense of understanding and novelty with problem solving across the curriculum. Think of the type of project discussed here in this article, and the results. Now, instead of three or four teacher-generated novelties, a student is exposed to twenty novelties and is allowed to process and apply their skills to those twenty unique situations.

Intrinsically motivation homework is not something that need be done every night. As already stated, workbook and review sheets are still necessary parts of a classroom curriculum to build success. However, allowing students to engage at least once weekly or even biweekly in an intrinsically motivating homework assignment in each subject will allow students to cognitively develop a more flexible and creative mind and experience learning for what it truly is, an experience of active engagement between the subject and the person. Just like reading specialists will point out that reading is a process in which they book being read brings something to the reader and the reader brings something to the book, so it is with any learning.

Want to learn more about how to nurture and feed the brain of today's generation?
Consider visiting http://www.brains.org/. Teachers, click HERE to learn more about nurturing your students in the classroom with brain-based research . Parents, click HERE to learn more about nurturing your child at home with brain-based research.

Morning Work in the Upper Elementary Grades

As an upper-grade elementary teacher, I always took the morning message concept with a grain of salt. In the fifth and sixth grade, curriculum expectations become larger, students hormones begin to blossom, and the beginning of the day can become horrendously hectic and chaotic at times without some type of engaging and meaningful structure. Obviously, we cannot sit down with a group of fifth grade students and review the weather for the day, and even meaningful work done with journals has proven for many to be less than productive.
Taking a tip of the hat from Mr. Harry Wong, classroom management guru and author of The First Days of School, it doesn't matter your thoughts about morning work, students need to be able to fall into a  routine on a daily basis at the start of each day, a routine that allows the teacher to focus on attendance, lunch counts, notice collections, homework collections, etc. and allows students to be immediately engaged and productive in a meaningful way. My solution to this has been an excellent series available for most elementary grades called Daily Language and Daily Math.
Broken down into weekly mini-lessons, with five problems each day of the week, students are able to review and work through new concepts in math and grammar. The beauty of this is that it introduced a cyclic style of teaching, where students will continually review problems in novel situations to help with retention and recall. To aid in focus and meaningful work ethic, we review the weekly work every Friday morning. Students get a copy of the answer sheet to review, and for every question correct, they earn a dollar in their student checking accounts (for a school store at the end of each month). They are not penalized for work that is attempted, but are penalized for work not even attempted.
I spend about a week at the beginning of the school year showing students how to approach  unknown problems by using their math textbook index to review lesson skills, by looking at previous week's work, by asking their group partners, by using a classroom computer to look up information in "approved" search areas. When I see a number of students struggling, I will stop the class and review it as a whole, as it is likely something they may not have ever seen before.
The first month is usually toughest for students, as they get back into a rhythm, but after a month, they see similar problems they didn't know before, and can now tackle them with ease, building confidence. Students also always hole punch and place completed Daily Language and Math worksheets in their class binders, so they can always refer back to them if they need to remember how to do a problem, since they should always be showing their work, or writing it down as I do it.

What is important to note is that whatever type of morning work you implement, it should be engaging, allow for some level of interaction with classroom resources, and a motivational factor should be in place, especially in the beginning. As the year progresses, the dollar in their checking account is less a factor than their happiness with getting a very difficult problem they used to struggle with correct.

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