No More Daily Oral Language (DOL)!
Teach Conventions in Context
The most effective way to teach grammar rules is in context. Over a week, you can have students explore a grammar rule in a way that will move the learning from short term to permanent memory. Each step below can be addressed in five to ten minutes.
Using a mentor text, students need to see a grammar rule in the correct form FIRST. This how we want them to remember it.
How Does One Teach in Context?
1. Select your grammar rule of the week
Example: Sentence Combining
2. Select your mentor text
Example: The Article from USA Today 'Dancing': Rose, Hough Talk Body'
3. Present students with the mentor text sentence.
4. Pose discussion questions so that the students analyze the sentence and discover what is good about the sentence. Questions to ask may include: What do you notice? What else? What's working in the text? Where's the good writing?
5. Explain the craft and rule of sentence combination. Make an anchor chart using the student's discoveries. Have students identify the structure of the sentence. For example,
_____________________, _______________________________, ___________________ and _____________.
6. Guided Practice-have students imitate the sentence by writing their own sentence using this structure. Be sure to have students share their sentences.
On another day, have students take the sentences and break them into smaller ones. This is a great way to help students analyze what the sentences says and means. Discuss how combining made the writing piece better as a whole.
7. Apply New Knowledge during independent practice by allowing time for students to locate several sentences in a piece of writing from their journals that could be combined using the grammar rule to make their writing sound and flow better.