PDF In Review: WBT Contrasting

The handy dandy PDFs Coach B. created to teach our classrooms while we sip on a foamy latte, are PERFECT for end of year lesson fillers.  To my surprise, it got the best response of any other PDF we have done thus far!  When I say even the most loafing students were out of their chairs begging to share the examples they created with their partners, I mean it!  EVERY single student was eagerly participating, yearning for the opportunity to detect what was DIFFERENT in each example.  The pictures are what really made the lesson enticing for students.

I particularly liked how the examples increased in difficulty, such as with Name That Box where students had to pick the contrast and use the Because Clapper to explain why they were right.   Eventually both boxes had contrasts or sometimes none at all!  Students enjoyed trying to dodge the trickery Coach B. had so carefully created.  As usual, the already made QT test gave me an excellent indicator of students understanding of the material, before heading into  critical thinking sentence frames.  

The lesson culminated with this final writing assignment:

We are on the second book, Reptile Room, of the Unfortunate Events series that my students LOVE!  I read a chapter aloud a day and give them very detailed writing prompts to answer.  This assignment fit in perfectly with the multitude of multi dimensional characters that we have come across. I gave them 15 minutes to write this 5 paragraph essay...What would have taken an hour or more to complete in the beginning of the year, now was completed in 15 minutes!!!  Ahh, I love Whole Brain Teaching.  You can view a few students sharing their essays with the class right here:

Oral Writing: Speaking Essays

Once your students are fluently speaking in paragraphs, they can begin to speak ESSAYS!  This is where  the wonderful Triple Whammy Sentence comes into play, previously known as the Triple Gold Sentence.  You can read more about this, and the very important CLINKERS, HERE in one of my old blog posts. 

The Triple Whammy is a topic sentence frame that can fit any subject or material you are currently working on, and its purpose is to guide the format of the entire essay.  Start with practicing micro-essays orally with your students, and then it will be an easier transition into a 5 paragraph essay.  For those that think, "My students can't even WRITE an essay properly, there's no way I can get them to SPEAK them!" let me share with you the reality that our students don't write well because we do not give them enough PRACTICE!  We all know that our students speak how they write, so if we teach them to speak essays, and give them daily opportunities to practice them through Oral Writing, our students actual writing will  substantially improve!

Micro- Essay Format: 

• Triple Whammy Topic Sentence  ________, ________ and ________.
• Two Adders about first part
• Two Adders about second part
• Two adders about third part
• Concluder

5 Paragraph Essay Format: 

• Introduction with Triple Whammy Topic Sentence ________, ________ and ________.
• Paragraph about first part
• Paragraph about second part 
• Paragraph about third part
• Conclusion

*Remember that a paragraph should have at least 3 sentences!

The color coding helps students organize their essay even more.  I use the Triple Whammy with a baseball theme, the Phillies of course, to help students keep track of where they are in their essay as they speak it.  I put matching color coded bases (square papers glued unto magnets) on the board in the shape of a diamond under the Triple Whammy Sentence.  I found a picture of our team's mascot, the Phillies Phanatic, and glued him to a magnet as well.  As students speak their paragraphs, a chosen student leader moves the Phanatic to the base that corresponds to the part a particular student is on in their essay.  This baseball theme is where the whole "Let's Go ____! Let's Go!" originated.  Every Friday we have a  Phillies Phanatic Triple Whammy Review segment where we review material from the week, using different topic sentence frames.

For many students, talking about personal subject matter will make it easier to string adders together to create essays.  Here are some personal essay Triple Whammy starters:

Recess is _____ because _____, ______, ______.

My favorite sport is ________ because ________, _______, and ______.

Our class is the best because ________, _______ and ________.

I love my family because ________, ________, ________.

Three qualities that describe me are ________, ________, ______.

Three things I am good at are _______, _______, _______.

My favorite subject in school is _______ because _______, ______ and ______.

Here are some other open ended sample topic sentence frames, or essay frames that you start with for school subject matter.  Notice the magic rule of three:

The three most important points in Chapter ____ were _____, _______, and ______.

Three things I can interpret from the diagram  are _______, ________, ________.

Three things I learned today are ________, _______ and ________.

Three things that cause _______ are ______, _______ and _______.

Three details from the poem that show ________ are ________, ________, and _____.

The author thinks _______because ______, ______, and ______.

I like to use Triple Whammies for review orally, but now I also use them heavily for typical writing assignments.  We do a written 5 paragraph essay at least once a week.  After reading a chapter a day, this week I finished reading aloud The Bad Beginning, the first book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.  For their writing assignment, I wrote this Triple Whammy sentence on the board:

 The Bad Beginning, written by Lemony Snicket, was _____________ because ________, ________ and ________.

The students took out their slates and began to write similes or metaphors to use in their Triple Whammy Essays.  Once I approved theirs, they went on to complete their Triple Whammy sentences, being sure to have a partner check that they didn't have any CLINKERS. This is ALL we did on the first day.  Since the Triple Whammy guides the entire essay, I give them the time to make sure they are properly constructed.

Here is a sample Triple Whammy written by a Mid-level student:

The Bad Beginning, written by Lemony Snicket, was as dreadful as a nightmare because the Baudelaire's parents died, the children had to live with an evil man, and Sunny was trapped in a high tower.

***

These are just some ideas to get you started, but you will find that it will be very easy to create Triple Whammy sentences that relate to the material you are working on in class.  Remember that the key is to PRACTICE!  Oral Writing should be integrated into EVERY part of your day.  If you have any open ended Triple Whammy sentence  frames you would like to share, please leave them in a comment!  The next post in this series will discuss citing evidence and using quotes in paragraphs.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Oral Writing: VIDEO

This video is an example of how Oral Writing can be used in your classroom, once you have  begun using it in your room on a regular basis.  Students use Oral Writing and  Air Punctuation to create a 5 paragraph essay about what makes our city, Philadelphia,  an amazing city.  Stay tuned to the Oral Writing Series to learn how to incorporate these techniques and more in your own classroom!

Turning Terror into Triumph: The Triple Whammy Sentence (Update)

When we returned to school Wednesday, after Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc in our area, I knew my students would need to reflect on the latest events and how Sandy affected them personally.  Many of my students ( and fellow teachers) were thrilled to be in school, especially since many still didn’t have power or safe conditions in their homes.  It was a perfect opportunity to use oral writing with the Genius Ladder  for students voices to be heard.  The Triple Whammy Sentence was also used to distinctively organize their thoughts.

Every morning, when students come in the room and unpack, they know to read the board for their special message and breakfast assignment.  That morning I wrote a warming message and a sentence on the bottom rung of my Genius Ladder: 

Superstorm Sandy VERB the East Coast.

 I could see a spark light in their eyes as they anticipated being able to share their Sandy experiences. I typically don’t do Oral Writing or Genius Ladder FIRST thing in the morning, but I knew it was important to begin this day in this way.  Students eagerly  began replacing the blank with verbs such as hit, struck, smashed, and destroyed.

ADJECTIVE Superstorm Sandy struck the East Coast.

 To make our sentences “spicier” we used adjectives to describe Superstorm Sandy.  After Teach-Okay, I had them inform me of different adjectives their partners used, and we created a web:

Three major effects of Superstorm Sandy were _______,_________ and ________.

This is what they were waiting for; the opportunity to provide three DIFFERENT ideas while avoiding the dreaded CLINKER! 'Clinker' is just one of those words that students enjoy saying. They LOVE when a student provides 3 ideas that are too similar, so they can loudly exclaim “CLINKER,” to alert that person to try again!  During this section, students stood up using their own variation of “Class-Yes” to get everyone’s attention, and then carefully proceeded to fill in the Triple Whammy Sentence.  In the very beginning I heard CLINKER  examples such as “ Three major effects of Superstorm Sandy were lots of wind, trees falling, and poles fell.”  I discussed how the wind caused the trees to fall and the poles to go down, so the ideas were too similar and would overlap.  I stressed choosing the MAJOR effects that would provide an ample amount of adders to later discuss in our paragraphs.  After only a few clunky CLINKERS, students were readily providing ideas that were different:

 “Three Major Effects of Superstorm Sandy were flooding, fires, and power outages."

We have been working on 5 paragraph essays for the past few weeks, so I set the students free at this point to create the Genius Introduction of their 5 paragraph essay about Sandy (after we did our 5 paragraph essay Power Pix reference and gesture.)  The only requirement was that it had to be AT LEAST 3 sentences and had to include their Clinker-free, topic sentence (aka Triple Gold Sentence). In the beginning of this unit, I had more structured guidelines, but now that students have more confidence in their writing, most students enjoy the freedom of using the Triple Gold Sentence in any part of the introductory paragraph they desire to.  Struggling writers kept the 2 sentences we worked on in class and then added  added sentences, while the more creative, advanced,  writers enjoyed creating their own catchy first sentences and clever closing sentences that we’ve practiced in past lessons.

 They enjoyed writing this essay, as it was a way to include all that they had experienced, or spent hours watching on the news for days!  I was VERY proud to see that only TWO students out of 27 had CLINKERS!  This was an amazing improvement from less than a month ago.  The remarkable thing about focusing on the Triple Whammy Sentence, is that it completely takes away the complexity for students in essay writing.  That one sentence guided the entire 5 paragraph essays they completed last week, keeping it focused and flowing!  Students automatically knew that their second paragraph would be about their 1^st example, their third paragraph would be about their 2^nd example and so on. 

Students also now routinely write their constructed responses in 5 paragraph form!  If the response only requires 2 examples, they modify it to a 4 paragraph essay.  At first it took FOREVER for them to complete assignments, but with practice they are becoming more fluent writers!   I love the increasing amount of time that I spend in TEACHER HEAVEN!