Dr. Louis' Blog

Now that school is underway, and you've taken time to introduce to students the functions of sentences in an academic paragraph, the time has come to gradually release the responsibility to them. For this week, you are going to have the students do paired writing and independent writing.

I want you to think of an assignment that could be divided into two body paragraphs. So develop two different prompts on one topic or article or literary work. Please make your decision on a student-friendly and easily accessible topic or text. Remember, they are just learning how to think about how to write academic essays. For the first prompt, divide the students into pairs and assign roles:

1. Before class begins, create the pairs. Don't just say, "Talk to the person next to you." Make this an actual get up and move activity. You should have some understanding by the fifth week of who should not be together and who will benefit from being together. You're the expert. Do not haphazardly make pairing decisions. This preparation on your part will help to make the activity work.
2. Start as a class. They are not in pairs, yet. Give the students the Prompt. Decode the prompt with them. Even color-code the prompt for CDs, CMs. 
3. Then, give the students the Gathering CDs graphic organizer. Tell them to get out their red pens. As you read the article or brainstorm the topic, pause and let them write the CDs. Again, they are not yet in pairs. You are leading this whole group session. 
4. When you finish the article or discussing a non text-based topic or issue, and they have listed CDs on their individual sheets, assign the pairs. 
5. Their task: Reread the prompt and decide as a pair which CD or CDs is the best. 
6. Different Types of Writing (Day 1)

1. Response to Literature: Have them gather their CMs and determine TS, CM1, and CM2; they both complete their own sheets; have them move their information to the Tchart.
2. Argumentation: Have them create a thesis "for" and a thesis "against;" have one student list the reasons "for" (at least three in blue); the other lists the reasons "against" (at least three in blue).
3. Expository: Move their CDs to the Tchart; together, they determine a working TS; have one work on the CMs for the first CD; have the other student work on the CMs for the second CD. Then, they both create their revised TS, their CM, and their CS.
4. Narrative: Paired writing for personal narrative doesn't work well for me, but it does for fictional narrative. If you are working with personal narrative, I would go straight to independent writing. With fictional narrative, however, have the students determine their Topic (p. 69) and their concrete example; then, create the character.

• Different Types of Writing (Day 2)

1. Response to Literature: WOW charts and WOTS chart. Have each one take one of the words and WOW it: one on the left side of the page; the other on the right side of the page. You must help them by making sure 1) the synonym in "Box 2" has the same tone as needed for the CD selected; 2) the clouds have phrases; and 3) the clouds are not simply definitions. (Rest up for this day; you won't be sitting.)
2. Argumentation: They select one reason (on the pro side or the con side) and identify which CDs they are going to use; they go to the Tchart and complete the Tchart. If you are expecting counter argument and refutation, tell them to wait until the end to complete that section.
3. Expository: Go to the shaping sheet. Tell them, "Do not copy; move and improve as a team the material, using other ideas." Give them your three editing rules. Remember mine?
4. Fictional Narrative: setting, back story, conflict

• Different Types of Writing (Day 3)

1. Response to Literature: Shaping Sheet and Final Draft (See 7.3 above for Shaping Sheet.)
2. Argumentation: Shaping Sheet and Final Draft (See 7.3 above for Shaping Sheet.)
3. Expository: Shaping Sheet (cont'd) and Final Draft (See 7.3 above for Shaping Sheet.)
4. Narrative: beginning, middle, end paragraphs and resolution -- Final Draft (They might need a 4th day.)

• Day 4-5 (Independent Writing)

1. Give them the second half of the prompt and have them perform all steps today and tomorrow.
2. All steps are done in class: Test Grade

I like to begin teaching archetypes with the fairy tale. One of my favorite fairy tales is "Sleeping Beauty." At the beginning of this popular fairy tale, the reader is introduced to the King and the Queen.

To begin, a teacher might ask his/her students the following question: what comes to mind when I say the word “King?” Teachers will hear responses such as ruler, power, control, wise, lawmaker. Because the King is the dominating, ruling principle, the image represents the Self, that part of us that rules our thoughts and actions. Then, teachers may extend that thought process by explaining that within each of us resides the King archetype.

Here is some dialogue with your students to consider: "When we rule over our thought processes, when we take control over our lives, when we make wise decisions, when our rational side controls our thoughts and action, we are tapping into our King archetype."

"When you are making an important decision in your life, the King archetype is triggered. You are ruling your own kingdom! So, when you are posed with a decision to make, you subconsciously engage the King archetype and ask, 'Is my decision based on what is good for others including myself?'"

"The King sets the standards for his Kingdom. So might the individual. In an individual’s case, the Kingdom represents the mind and its progressive movement forward."A discussion of consequences may ensue. You might say, "Decisions we make have consequences, not just for ourselves but for those around us."

"What kind of ruler are you? Are you a tyrant toward yourself and others? Or are you a benevolent ruler toward yourself and others?"

The King and the Queen represent archetypal images found in the collective unconscious of an individual’s psyche. They are important decision-makers, and students who are on the path of developing into an individual might think of the King as one path toward removing themselves from the chains of peer pressure. This type of discussion provides students with an understanding of how the archetypes mingle in our daily lives.(The Queen plays a different role from the King, and her influence in our conscious and unconscious is fodder for an upcoming blog.) To introduce depth psychology to the young in a way that produces thought-provoking results is to consider the images. The King is one of those images.

Some texts that might interest you, the teacher: Edinger, Edward F. Ego and Archetype:  Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche. Boston: Shambhala, 1992.Jung, C.G. The Collected Works of C. G.  Jung. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Vol. 9, Part I. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969.Louis, Deborah E. Aproaches to Teaching Archetypal and Mythocultural Literature in a Technological World. Dissertation. April 2013.Von Franz, Marie-Louise. The Feminine in Fairy Tales. Rev. ed. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1993.

Now, you are ready to WRITE WITH THE STUDENTS. You are going to lead this dynamic endeavor. Rest up, because this is hard but rewarding work. Decide which prompt you would like to use. Last week, I divided the S&S into the four modes of discourse. This week, however, you are going to stay with that mode and determine the prompt you will use. Some ideas -- if you were using one of our models, simply work through the second half of the passage with a collaborative approach. If you used one of your own models, try to stay with the same article or issue. Write a different paragraph, but if you can stay with the same subject of the first piece, you will have an easier and more expeditious time of it, because the students will be familiar with the subject at hand.

Some ideas to consider:

• Do not let one or two students manipulate the conversation. If you have technology that randomly selects students, use it. Call on volunteers and non-volunteers. If you do not have the technology, give the students tickets and have drawings for offering their thoughts. Make sure you know which students have which numbers.
• Reward the students. I always rewarded my students with beads. 

• I went to a craft store and purchased cords, cutting them about 8-10 inches in length. I then went to old antique shops (e.g., Lynn Arts in Arlington, Texas) and purchased boxes of beads: glass beads, wooden beads (for the boys); all differently shaped beads.
• I gave each student two glass beads and showed them how to create a bracelet.

• Take the end of one cord and slide it into both beads. Then, take the other end of the cord and slide it through the opposite end of both beads.
• Tie the ends. Then, untie one end when you are adding beads.
• Slide both ends of the cord into the beads. Tie knots at the end.
• When students volunteered answers or said something astounding or asked a particularly wonderful question, I would tell them to go to the beads and select 1, 2, or 3. They would add them to their bracelets. When their bracelet was full, they would create another bracelet or necklace or ankle bracelet or ring. They loved it!

Day 1: Decode the prompt. Work through the Gathering CDs, calling on volunteers and non-volunteers.

Day 2 -3: Tchart and Commentary

Day 4-5: Shaping Sheet. You notice that this is a two-day writing workshop. Here, I would like to see your class dialogue about diction, and I would like you to work on types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. For ESL students, one of the areas of focus should be checking on words that need "ed" at the end. I'm finding that the past tense verb is problematic.

Type up their final draft and give it to them to place in their notebooks. Now they have two models!

Dear Dr. D'

My students do not know how to put quoted material in their essays? Can you help me?

Margaret

Dear Margaret,

My friend, Shelly Cook, calls this strategy "Avoiding the Kerplunk Effect," and I love that phrase! Yes, let's talk about how to seamlessly embed quotations, a skill that is not only a valuable skill for literary analyses, but also a standard in most states and certainly in the Common Core State Standards. Let me share with you Jane's solution which is found in all of the guides. She calls it Transition/Lead-in/Concrete Detail, or TLCD.

Instructions for Students:

1. Choose your quotation CD and write it on the Quotation lines on your Tchart.
2. Think of the lead-in by asking yourself, “What happens in the story right before the quote?”
3. Use one of these starter words to begin the lead-in and write it on the Lead-in lines on your Tchart:

1. After
2. Since
3. Although
4. When
5. As
6. While
7. Before

I tell the students that the test of a well-placed embedded quotation is that if I close my eyes and ask a student to read his or her sentence, I should not be able to tell when the writer's voice ends and the quote begins.

Then, I take the students to YouTube and the AllState commercial where the AllState's spokesperson's voice replaces the speaker's voice. It's the same feel with embedded quotations.

Here are few examples:

‍High School Example:

Prompt: In Act 1, Scenes 5-7 of William Shakespeare’s drama, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind her husband’s resolve to murder King Duncan.  In a well-organized two-chunk paragraph (1:2+), analyze the extent to which Lady Macbeth rejects her femininity to further her pursuit of power. List of CDs Selected:

• “Bellona’s bridegroom” (Mac. 1.2.54)
• “You should be women,/And yet your beards forbid me to interpret/That you are so” (Mac. 1.3.45-47)
• “Against the use of nature” (Mac. 1.3.137).

1. In Scene 2, Ross describes Macbeth as “Bellona’s bridegroom" (Mac.1.2.54), and in mythology, Bellona is the goddess of war. 
2. When Banquo and Macbeth come upon the “Weird Sisters,” Banquo is confused by the appearance of the witches who “should be women,/And yet [their] beards [. .  .]” suggest otherwise. (Mac. 1.3.45-47)
3. Macbeth believes that his thoughts of murdering King Duncan are “[a]gainst the use of nature” (Mac. 1.3.137).

Middle School Example

"Pancakes" by Joan Bauer

Jill views herself as a perfectionist and has high expectations for herself. A teenager who works at Ye Olde Pancake House as a waitress, Jill is hired to replace a disorganized waitress because Jill is “a person of order” with a “system for everything [. . .], even alphabetizing condiments.

”Elementary School Example

‍Cinderella must do all the "cooking, cleaning, and sewing by herself" (2).

Keep Reading and Writing!

Warm regards,

Dr. D' 

Week Three: Some of you might have asked your students to come to class today having watched a sports event on the weekend and bringing examples of play-by-play CDs and color commentator CMs. If so, use the first half of the class having them write samples in a carousel fashion on paper attached to the walls of the classroom  (with music, of course) and then reviewing the accuracy of their findings. 

Before we begin, you'll notice that I have not divided Week Three into Days. Teachers have different schedules and interruptions. The list below can be done in five days. Some of you might complete it in less time; some of you might need more time. The key is to "TAKE YOUR TIME."

Solicit questions. Don’t let them sit in those desks for more than 15-20 minutes without having them get up and move – Suggestion: GoNoodle.com– music and brain breaks!

1. Give the students two handouts: the color-coded paragraph you presented last week (p. 22 Expos) and a blank “Gathering CDs” graphic organizer. If you cannot copy the color-coded paragraph in color, then copy it in black-and-white; but then have your students highlight (blue, pink, green) or underline (blue, red, green) the document as a review.
2. Gathering CDs – 

1. Review your PowerPoint® slide on CDs; 
2. Quiz students on the four places where CDs can be found; 
3. Do some kind of fun activity about “pointing” and then email me that activity to add to the newsletter (info@louisconcepts.com); 
4. Have the students list the CDs from the model; 
5. Review your rules about using evidence from the internet (if you want to know my rules, email me a question (info@louisconcepts.com), and I’ll feature it on Writing with Dr. D’); 
6. Have the students circle or label which CD or CDs were chosen (depending on which mode and ratio you are using), and 
7. Explain the importance of the decision-making process when choosing which CD(s) are the best to use (e.g., supports the TS; generates CM[s], resonates with audience [ethos]).

• Give the students a blank Tchart from the packet.
• To avoid confusion with color-coding, place the blank Tchart on your doc camera. Before they begin copying, and with you as their guide, have the students circle TS in blue; CD column heading in red; CM column heading in green, CM sentence in green, CS sentence in blue. This will remind them of the colors as they go through the thinking process.
• Go through the steps on p. 52. Note: As they copy the simple model TS, remind them that it is a “working TS” or a “throw-away TS.” It focuses the Tchart, but it’s not in its final state.
• Once you complete the CM side with them, remind them that an Expository paragraph has a ratio of 2+:1. “Look at all this commentary! We’ll take this commentary and 

1. revise the TS;
2. Create the one CM; and
3. Create the CS.

• Remind them as they are revising and creating sentences from their CMs, “When you use it, you lose it.” Make sure you proceed in the order (see the numbers in parentheses on the chart that show the order.
• Explain that by completing the Tchart in the process, they have completed their first drafts. 
• Give the students two handouts: a blank “Shaping Sheet” and my “Transitions” handout. Tell them, “We’re going to ‘Move and Improve’ (from trainer Lauren Roedy-Vaughn).”
• Have them move (don’t say “Copy”) the information from the Tchart to the “Shaping Sheet,” revising the sentences as they move them (e.g., include more CMs from what they did not use on their Tcharts – TS, CM, CS). Here, you may go beyond the model and let them do some revising on their own, adding transitions between sentences where necessary. Create complete sentences for the CDs.
• For ELA teachers, give the students three rules for editing and revision (e.g., p. 47); for non-ELA teachers, focus on the TS to make sure it accomplishes what the prompt asks; and then look at the CDs and explain that determining the content of these cells is critical in presenting explanation/information.
• Completing the “Shaping Sheet” results in their second drafts!
• Move and Improve to the final draft (write or type in black-and-white or color), using the paragraph form (if writing) in your graphic organizers.

Contact me with questions. I'm here for you.

Dr. D'

Week Three: Some of you might have asked your students to come to class today having watched a sports event on the weekend and bringing examples of play-by-play CDs and color commentator CMs. If so, use the first half of the class having them write samples in a carousel fashion on paper attached to the walls of the classroom (with music, of course) and then reviewing the accuracy of their findings.

Before we begin, you'll notice that I have not divided Week Three into Days. Teachers have different schedules and interruptions. The list below can be done in five days. I've bolded nice starting points. Some of you might complete it in less time; some of you might need more time. The key is to "TAKE YOUR TIME." Solicit questions. Don’t let them sit in those desks for more than 15-20 minutes without having them get up and move – Suggestion: GoNoodle.com– music and brain breaks!

1. Use the model prompt, “Tell about a time when you made a mistake.”
2. Give the students a blank “Tchart.”
3. To avoid confusion with color-coding, place the blank Tchart on your doc camera, and with you as their guide, have the students circle TS in blue; CD column heading in red; and CM column heading in green.
4. Pull a popular novel, short story, or chapter book off the shelf and read the first chapter. At the beginning of the story, the reader can begin picturing the setting, the characters, and the plot. Tell the students that this visual picture in their minds unfolds because of the details in the story. This picture is what they want to create when they are writing/telling a story to their audiences. It happens through the details, and this reason is why the ratio is what it is.
5. Use the model on p. 92 to demonstrate the Tchart process for the beginning paragraph of the model paragraph. Students copy each part, and you explain again the importance of details when writing a narrative. Return to the novel, short story, or chapter book and have them highlight the details/images that relate to the “Tchart.”
6. One mistake that is often made when beginning this process is that teachers and students think that the Tchart is about the whole story; it’s not. It delves into the beginning only. You will work through a Tchart for the middle part of the story and again for the end of the story. Yes, there might be some repetition, but if you will tell the students to “go deeper” as the story unfolds, then, hopefully, the story will evolve, and the characters and events will be visualized in the imagination of the reader. Each section of the story will have a “Tchart.” Completing the Tchart results in their first draft of their first paragraph of the story.
7. For the CDs and CMs, review pp. 78 – 83 with the students.
8. Give the students two handouts: a blank “Shaping Sheet” and my “Transitions” handout. Tell them, “We’re going to ‘Move and Improve’ (from trainer Lauren Roedy-Vaughn).”
9. Have them move (don’t say “Copy”) the information from the Tchart to the “Shaping Sheet,” revising the sentences as they move them (e.g., include more CMs from what they did not use – TS, CM, CS). Here, you may go beyond the model and let them do some revising on their own, adding transitions between sentences where necessary. Create complete sentences for the CDs.
10. For ELA teachers, give the students three rules for editing and revision; for non-ELA teachers, focus on the TS to make sure it accomplishes what the prompt asks; and then look at the CDs and explain that determining the content of these cells is critical in presenting explanation/information.
11. Completing the “Shaping Sheet” results in their second drafts!
12. Move and Improve to the final draft (write or type in black-and-white or color), using the paragraph form (if writing) in your graphic organizers.
13. Then, repeat the process for the second body paragraph (middle of the story) and the third body paragraph (end of the story). Or, read through it together and then build a story together.

Contact me with questions. I'm here for you.

Dr. D'