quarta-feira, 10 de junho de 2009

Writing in Year 3

Kids in Year 3 are reading texts about Smart Solutions, Unit 2 of their Reading Street 3.1 didatic book. After reading the text "Prudy's problem and how she solved it", the story of a girl who did not recognize she had a problem, I suggested a group activity. The proposal was the following: The whole class had to think about one problem they share or shared and just then right a solution for it. They did it in three steps: 1. write a plan; 2. structure the paragraph and 3. together with the teacher edit the paragraph. Check out the result:.

Plan:.

"Problem - The problem that we have is the bugs that bite us.
Solution - Put repelex on as bodies." (sic)

Paragraph's 1st Draft:

"Our classroom is close of the trees so a lot of bugs come here so they bite us so we have to pass repelex for the bugs don't bite us in our cassroom for we can do activities and don't stay scraching and can do are activities in pies."

To edit this short paragraph I asked questions such as: Why did you repeat words so many times? Is it possible to have a paragraph with only one sentence? Are you sure of the spelling of all those words? Let's read it out loud?! Just then they realized small mistakes, and without a big intervention from me!

Final version:

" Our classroom is close of the trees so a lot of bugs come here. They bite us and we have to pass Repelex for the bugs to leave us alone. Then we can do our activities and don't stay scratching our bodies."

What do you think about it!? Let me know...