Topic: teaching writing to young learners

Presentation of New Material/Procedure (15 minutes): The teacher will walk over to each student and ask one to pull a slip of paper out of the cup. Written upon the paper, the teacher will explain, are sentences that were taken from student essays from the last class. The teacher will then ask each student to pick one and read it aloud while he (the teacher) writes it on the board; the rason why I did not select the students to go up to the board in write is due to time constraints as well as potential inaccuracies of transcribing—thus, it would be too time consuming for a 45 minute lesson; it would work, however, if more time were permitted. Then, the teacher will ask the student who read the sentence aloud to come to the board and ask his or her classmates to help fix the sentence; the sentence as stated by the student will be written in black ink, while corrections will be made in blue (not red- as red often intimidates).

• Presentation of New Material/Procedure (15 minutes): The teacher will walk over to each student and ask one to pull a slip of paper out of the cup. Written upon the paper, the teacher will explain, are sentences that were taken from student essays from the last class. The teacher will then ask each student to pick one and read it aloud while he (the teacher) writes it on the board; the rason why I did not select the students to go up to the board in write is due to time constraints as well as potential inaccuracies of transcribing—thus, it would be too time consuming for a 45 minute lesson; it would work, however, if more time were permitted. Then, the teacher will ask the student who read the sentence aloud to come to the board and ask his or her classmates to help fix the sentence; the sentence as stated by the student will be written in black ink, while corrections will be made in blue (not red- as red often intimidates).
• For example: Suppose the sentence is this: “Bill Gates ownes a homez in Seattle.” The student will call on a student to ask for one item that is incorrect and then on another to point out the next. Then, the teacher will ask the student to read the corrected sentences aloud and will then ask the class, as a whole, whether the corrections are sufficient; each student will have at least one opportunity, if not two, to “be the teacher.”
• For example: “Bill Gates owns a home (or house) in Seattle.”
• Another example: “Tired he is as walks he does his dog.” The teacher will ask the student who extracted this sentence to go to the board to ask for corrections. (He was tired from walking the dog. Or he was tired because he walked the dog).