Literacy Project 1

Analysis

This analysis is based off of two short writing samples provided by E (shortened to protect student identity).  The first sample is half a page of a final draft he wrote about his feelings towards various academic subjects.  The second sample is the first two pages of a rough draft about a mysterious adventure.  I believe that this piece was written in response to a classroom prompt.  The spelling analysis is taken from both the written samples and from the student's spelling inventory.

Ownership and Meaning

When I sat down with E to share his writing, the first piece he shared was his final draft.  It is more of an essay than a story - it details his feelings towards the various academic subjects in school.  Still, he was much more excited to talk about some of the fantasy stories he has written.  He happily shared his piece about a talking fish, as well as the piece I have about the adventure he takes to discover long-lost pirate treasure.  He repeatedly stated that his favorite type of story to write is a "make-believe, fantasy story."  I wonder if he first offered the essay because it was a completed piece, and he believed that it was what I would want to see.

E shared that his mom often tells him that he should be a writer when he grows up.  However, in his essay, he describes his relationship with writing as a "battle."  He feels that he "always take[s] forever just to come up with one idea!"  He also shared that he becomes discouraged when his grades in writing do not reflect the effort that he put into it.

Six Traits

Ideas

E's ideas in his final draft draw upon his own feelings and experiences in school.  He explains that he thinks "math is really important even when you have a job," and goes on to explain the difficulties in his relationship with writing.  In his rough draft, he sets the stage by discussing the circumstances in which he found a message in a bottle.  He then jumps to his "long trip to Mt. Gold and Silver."  As I only have the first two pages of this draft, I assume that the rest of the draft details his trip to find the treasure.

Organization

For the most part, organization in the two writing samples is strong.  E breaks up his stories nicely with clear paragraphing.  There is an attempt made at transitioning; however, this is typically done simply through use of the word "Then, ...".  At one point in his rough draft, there seems to be a large gap in his story.  He details the message he found in a bottle - it essentially gives him coded directions to buried treasure.  He writes that "it made no sense to me."  However, he immediately jumps to, "Then, I found myself packing for the trip."  There is a missed connection between these two statements; additional work here would benefit his story by making it clearer to his reader.

Voice 

Voice varies between the two pieces.  In his essay, his voice is very personal and clear.  He explains that he always tries his best at math, while writing can be a struggle for him.  He shares his discouragement at his writing grades.  In his rough draft, the voice is more mechanical and choppy.  At times he states, "This is what happened next when I found a strange message in a bottle."  From these statements, I infer that he views this piece of writing as one that must be completed step-by-step.  I wonder also if he had a requirement sheet (physical or mental) that he saw himself moving down as he wrote this piece.

Word Choice

E successfully uses colorful language in both of his pieces.  In his final draft, he uses words like "discourage, juicy, and gripe."  Words like "mysterious, unfortunately, and parchment" are found in his rough draft.  Overall, E infuses strong words into his writing to make it more interesting to his reader.  Additional experience and work could help him to add even more juicy words to his writing.

Sentence Fluency

E's sentence fluency is solid, though not necessarily strong.  Some of his sentences are choppy and have a bit of a staccato feel to them.  Additionally, his writing would benefit from stronger use of transitions.

Conventions

E successfully used conventions in his final draft.  I do not know if the piece originally looked as polished as the copy I have because I did not have access to his rough draft.  In the rough draft piece that I do have, there is some errors with punctuation.  He seems to be "using but confusing" where to place commas.  Additionally, he tends to capitalize words that do not need capitalizing - "Pirate."

Spelling

I believe that E's spelling is advanced for his age.  He missed the final four words on the inventory (forutanate, civlize, confindant, and oppossion).  Still, his approximations were close.  He needs work on syllable junctures, consonant doubling, inflected endings, and prefixes and suffixes (Bear et al, 2004).  Additionally, E remained at the independent level on the Examiner spelling lists up through the sixth grade words.  He reached the instructional level for the upper middle school and high school level words.  E misspelled a couple of words in his writing, though they were more challenging words.  He spelled "unfourtlulay" and "mysteryous."  Again, these misspellings represent that he is in the syllable stage of spelling development (Templeton & Morris, 1999).  Though misspelled, I appreciate his effort at including these words in his writing as they enhance his story.

E made an interesting statement during administration of the spelling inventory.  After being given the word "cellar" and hearing it used in a sentence, he said, "I usually just start spelling a word as soon as I hear it.  I started to spell 'seller,' but after I listened to the sentence I knew it was 'cellar.'"  He demonstrated his knowledge that spelling represents both sound and meaning (Templeton & Morris, 1999). 

Lesson Plan

Objectives

Student will be able to "chunk" words into syllables for use as both a reading and a spelling strategy.

Standards

GLE 1.1 Use word recognition skills and strategies to read and comprehend text.

GLE 3.3.2 Spells words appropriate for grade level accurately.

Materials

List of multisyllabic words
Small whiteboard
Dry erase marker
Sock eraser

Instruction


Teacher will show student list of multisyllabic words and explain what it is.  Teacher will explain that student will be writing words on his whiteboard (one at a time), and then he will chunk them into individual syllables.  The act of writing the word on the whiteboard will serve as reinforcement of correct spelling of word.  If necessary, a discussion about syllables will be included.  Teacher explains that this process of breaking words down helps both in figuring out new words when reading, as well as listening for sounds and word parts when spelling longer words.


Teacher models activity by writing the first word on the whiteboard.  Teacher then breaks the word into chunks with marker (ex: steth-o-scope).  Teacher models reading the word by reading each chunk and then blending the word together.


Teacher assists student as he tries on this process with the second word.


Teacher releases student to independent practice with the rest of the words.  Teacher continues to monitor that student is correctly breaking words into syllables and blending word back together.


The lesson is closed with a discussion on how the student can employ this strategy both when reading new words in a text, as well as accurately spelling multisyllabic words for use in his writing.

Assessment


Teacher will assess student's ability to decode multisyllabic words in text by monitoring him as he completes the exercise on the whiteboard.  Teacher will continue to assess student's ability throughout the year as he reads, as well as through administration of running records and other reading assessments.


Teacher will also assess student's ability to accurately spell multisyllabic words by looking for their correct spelling in his writing and on spelling tests.

***Idea for follow-up lesson***


Teacher would verbally give multisyllabic words to student for him to write down on his whiteboard using the chunking strategy to decode the word.