WRITING PARAGRAPHS

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Mississippi State University Department of
Education Mississippi Writing/Thinking
Institute The National Writing Project 7sites
in Mississippi Alcorn State University Delta
State University Mississippi State
University Mississippi Valley State
University University of Mississippi University
of Southern Mississippi University of Southern
MississippiGulf Park Campus Polly A.
Rosenblatt, Teacher/Consultant Alcorn State
University Writing Project www.nationalwritingpr
oject.org
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Outcome Measures for Level D (grade level 6 to
8.9)

• The individual can write simple narrative
  descriptions and short essays on familiar topics
  and has consistent use of basic punctuation but
  makes grammatical errors with complex
  structures.
• National Reporting System

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Outcome Measures for Level A(Grade level 9 to
10.9)

• Individual can comprehend expository writing and
  identify spelling, punctuation, and grammatical
  errors can listen to oral instructions and
  write an accurate synthesis of them Writing is
  organized and cohesive with few mechanical
  errors can write using a complex sentence
  structure. NRS

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Make writing second nature by

• Writing to prompts every class for the first 10
  minutes
• Assigning writing (freewriting or to prompts) in
  journalsthree entries per week outside of class
• Reward those students who have those journal
  entries
• Polly A. Rosenblatt, Presenter

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Writing is a Real-World Necessity

• Did you know that one hour has been added to the
  average American work day since e-mail was
  invented?

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Ways to raise the level of fluency in writing

• Emphasize writing as a processgood writing is
  revised many, many times before the final
  editing.
• Identify ways to stimulate interest in writing in
  adult learners
• Identify and use concrete and specific language
  in writing, using examples from good writing as
  models
• Teach students to FOCUS their writing on the
  topic identify methods of organization which
  enhance focus.
• Identify and use varied sentence structure,
  parallel structure, subject-verb agreement in
  writing
• Polly Rosenblatt, Teacher/Consultant
• Alcorn Writing Project

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Writing as a Process

• Brainstorm
• Draft
• Revise, revise, revise, revise, revise, revise,
  revise, revise, revise..
• Edit
• Publish

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Ways to Stimulate Interest in Writing

• Let Adult Learners determine what they would like
  to write about
• Put writing prompt on board each class period
• Use real world, day-to-day problems as possible
  topics

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USE

• CONCRETE
• LANGUAGE
• In
• Writing

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CONCRETE LANGUAGEIS

• Sensory Language
• What does it LOOK like?
• What does it TASTE like?
• How does it FEEL?
• What does it SOUND like?
• What does it SMELL like?

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SKIT

• BEEN FISHIN
• STARRING
• CATHY NEVELS
• And
• A Buddy
• Skit written by Polly Rosenblatt
• Teacher/Consultant
• Alcorn Writing Project

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Use SPECIFIC Language

• .a comfortable chair
• AFTER REVISON BECOMES
• a lime green velvet Lazy-Boy recliner with drink
  holders, a sound system, and a neck-massaging
  head rest
• Polly Rosenblatt, Teacher/Consultant
• Alcorn Writing Project

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ACTIVITY

• Students will read excerpt from The Hobbit by
  J.R.R. Tolkien. (Handout1)
• Students will work in small groups to read and to
  identify the concrete language.
• Students will categorize words according to
  sound language, sight language, etc.
• Students will share results in large group.

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Possible responses to concrete language activity

• Sounds
• Sing, croak
• Flap of feet on stone
• Terrifying
• Echoed
• Clap, snap
• Crunch, smash
• Laughter
• Song
• Whippedswish, smack
• Yammering
• Bleating
• Laughed, stamped

• Stamped
• Whooped
• Cracked whips
• Quarreled

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Writing Activity

• Write a descriptive narrative of your visit to a
• family reunion,
• or
• a state fair,
• using
• CONCRETE LANGUAGE!

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Write a short essay telling what you like about
attending family reunions

• Handouts 2 3 show
• two different responses to the prompt
• revision hints designed to raise the educational
  functioning level of the writing, as the new
  writing objectives demand.

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Handout 2 Revision ExerciseFamily Reunion
paragraph--draft

• One of my favorite parts of attending a family
  reunion is the food. At our reunions, every one
  of my aunts feel the need to cook their most
  delicious and most popular dish of food. Then,
  each dish is put on one big table. We say the
  blessing, and then we eat. Fried catfish, potato
  salad, green beans, black-eyed peas, fried
  chicken, cole slaw, jello salad, fruit salad.
  Then we go to the dessert table. We choose from
  between coconut cake, buttermilk pie, blackberry
  cobbler, and homemade ice cream. We play
  softball, too. But nothing is as good as the
  food.

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Revisions Use peer groups

• Add concrete and specific language, using peer
  collaboration
• Check sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement,
  pronoun-antecedent agreement, appropriate words,
  and extraneous sentences that are not on topic of
  the paragraph.

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Handout 3 Family Reunion paragraph after
revisions

• One of my favorite parts of attending a family
  reunion is the food that we eat. At our
  reunions, every one of my aunts feels compelled
  to cook her most delicious, and perhaps most
  popular, dish of food. Then, each dish is placed
  on one long, festive-looking picnic table. My
  uncle usually volunteers to say the blessing, and
  then we eat. We enjoy freshly caught fried
  catfish, Aunt Sooks potato salad with crunchy
  bits of celery and the smoky flavor of bacon (her
  secret ingredient), green beans picked from
  Uncle Raymonds garden, black-eyed peas from the
  deep freezer, fried chicken made by Granny
  Blythes recipe, cole slaw, cherry Jell-O with
  sliced bananas, and fresh watermelon and
  cantaloupe salad. Then we inspect the dessert
  table, and choose from among the array of
  homemade desserts that includes coconut cake,
  buttermilk pie, cobbler made from fresh
  blackberries, and Thomass homemade peach ice
  cream. Family reunions just would not be the
  same if everyone decided to bring peanut butter
  and jelly sandwiches!

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FOCUS AND ORGANIZATION

• Essays, narrative descriptions, must have focus,
  i.e., all sentences must provide details for the
  main idea or ideas presented
• Organization is one way to accomplish this idea
  of FOCUS

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Ways to Organize and DevelopWriting

• Describe a PROCESS
• Do this, then do this or this happens, then this
  happens, then this happens, etc.

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Ways to Organize and Develop Writing

• Cause and Effect
• This happens then, as a result, this happens.

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Ways to Organize and DevelopWriting

• Compare/Contrast
• Shopping in the city compared to shopping in a
  small town
• Living in the city compared to living in the
  country

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Ways to Organize and DevelopWriting

• Narration
• This happened, then this happened, then this
  happened

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Ways to Organize and DevelopWriting

• Order of Importance
• From least important to most important
• From most expensive to least expensive
• From most damaging (hurricane) to the least
  damaging (breeze)
• From the most desirable (quality I inherited from
  my parents) to the least desirable
• From the least difficult to the most difficult

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Identify and Use

• Varied sentence structure
• Because the weather was unpredictable, we decided
  to postpone our hot-air balloon ride. Instead,
  we paddled our canoe across the Buffalo River to
  a cypress swamp. There we listened to alligators
  bark love calls to each other, and watched birds
  retrieve fish from the water for their evening
  meal.

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Identify and Use

• Parallel Structure
• What is not parallel about the following
  sentences?
• The boys will play baseball, fly airplanes, and
  fish.
• Learning responsibility is as important as your
  schoolwork.

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Identify and Use

• Subject-verb agreement
• Handout 4 (List of irregular verbs)
• Practice reciting aloud in unison irregular verbs
  with their subjects
• Adult learners who have not had the benefit of
  hearing English spoken correctly will retrain
  their ears.

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Identify and Use

• Active voice verbs
• The art of Van Gogh is admired by people all
  over the world. (passive voice)
• People all over the world admire the art of
  Van Gogh. (active voice)

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Use Writing as a Learning Toolin all Content
Areas

• Use writing to summarize, respond to, to give
  personal reaction to, to explain, to record, to
  identify important facts..
• IN ALL OTHER SUBJECTS!

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SUMMARIZE

• Writing is a process over time
• Revise, revise, revise
• Stimulate interest in writing outside of
  classroom environment (Journals)
• Use concrete and specific language
• FOCUS Use ways to organize writing
• Identify and use varied sentences, parallel
  structure, subject-verb agreement