This is a quote I found on Twitter and I know this person is not alone in how she feels. If you are also wondering how best to direct your young language arts students to meet the new tougher criteria, here are some tips I offer you:
I
can understand your frustration! It has always been very difficult for
students to be focused when they have TWO pages to work with and now
they are asked to condense their essays to ONE. Since the rubric is
very clear that in a personal narrative, the students are to write about
ONE experience or one event, limiting them to one page and 26 lines
will help make or force this to happen. Teach them to think of the most
interesting event that happened in a specific (GPS) location, then
explode THAT idea only, leaving out all the other trivial or less
important events.
For
the purpose of expository, follow the same general idea. For example,
if the students are writing an essay based on the prompt that T.E.A.
released, Write about a special person, only allow the kids to give ONE
or TWO related reasons why the person is special, without responding in
what I call an exposiSTORY format.
If
you would like any ideas on strategies that would assist you in
teaching student to be focused and to develop around a focus, feel free
to contact me!
