Chapter 2: Supporting Sentences

 Lesson Outline:
Day 1:
       Introduce and define supporting sentences.
       Warm-up exercise (done as a whole class): Pick the sentence that does not support the     topic.
       Prewriting: Introduce the idea of prewriting.  Exercise: As a class, brainstorm supporting reasons for 2 or 3 different topics.  Write on board and save for the next day.  Note: I wish I had done this with groups and had them present their ideas to the class (I tried to sneak in speaking practice).

Day 2:
  Warm-up: Pick the sentence that does not support the topic.
  Review the prewriting exercise from the previous class. 
  Depending on the class level, have them work in groups (or alone w/ a worksheet...I hated relying on the book because the kids would have the review ones with all the sections filled in).  Write between 3 -5 supporting sentences for their topic.  Have the students write the sentences on the board.  ( I had 6 groups, so each topic had two groups working on it).

Day 3: (this was at a coteacher's request)  Write the sentences back on the board.  Have students pick the ones they want to do, and write down in their books or a worksheet.  Then have then 'fill in' the paragraph.  Remind them of topic sentences and briefly tell them that the last sentence will be similar to the topic sentence.


Overall notes: I wish i had condensed this into 2 lessons and made worksheets.  I was a very green teacher for this and literally had no idea what I was doing.  Also, the powerpoints I uploaded were edited a few times to go with class level and timing.  I tried to time the main worktime (prewriting and writing) to be the last 20 minutes or so.   
   
     

Chapter 4: Writing Outlines

I spent a lot of time on this one because I think prewriting and outlining are extremely important.  It also gave me a chance to review paragraph structure and examples. 

Day 1:
  Introduce outlines.  Explain why they are important
 Introduce the structure of a paragraph.  I used a hamburger and it really stuck well.  All of the students remembered the structure after that.  :)
  Exercise: ID the different parts of a paragraph.
 Go over the writing process (essentially what we've always been doing).  Point out where outlining goes. 
 Explain how to make an outline. I had the students read the summary of it on page 98 (all in Korean, I translated it myself and explained it more in English, the translations are in the powerpoint).  Show where each section of an outline falls on the hamburger.
 Prewriting: have students write down as much as possible about role models and best friends in the word map.  I did a quick example on the board with JK Rowling.  A lot of the students will complain that they don't have a role model or best friend.  I told them to use either a celebrity they like, me, or themselves.    

I know...that was a lot of talking.  Still, try to keep it down to under half an hour.

Day 2: Making an Outline
 Review outlines and how to make them.  Have the students try to remember on their own.
 Explain how to group different ideas together using (kind of) the book example.  Have them group their own ideas together. (take about 5 minutes)
 Make an outline as a class, then have them make their own outline.   

Ideally, they brought their own books to class and used page 100 outline model.  If they didn't, have paper/worksheets on hand.  Also ideally, they finished the prewriting from the previous class. 

Day 3: Using your outline

Quickly review outlining and paragraph structure again.  You'd be surprised how much they had forgotten.  Introduce using outlines to write a paragraph. 

Have them write on their own.  They should produce 2 paragraphs.  I told them if they finished both paragraphs, they would get candy.  I actually had worksheets this time.  I got frustrated with the book and them for having pre-filled in ones so I finally started to make worksheets.  Yeah...I'm a slow learner.

This was when I started to collect their work.  I didn't 'grade;' I just corrected to get an idea of where they were at and how to improve their overall writing and glaring grammar errors.   

I would again recommend making worksheets for the actual outline.  I think about half the class didn't have their books or had the already filled in ones.  Makes it hard when most of the class period is devoted to work.   

 

Chapter 6: Comparing and Contrasting
This was the hardest one in terms of grammar.  It was also the last chapter that I covered before finals set in.  Just remembering trying to explain that grammar gives me the shudders.  Maybe you all can come up with better ways.

Day 1:
Introduce and define comparing and contrasting.  show examples and point out the different comparing/contrasting words.
Go over different comparing/contrasting words.  (I kind of wish I made a word search or something because this part was BORING).
Do the exercise in the book page 146.  I actually wish I made a worksheet for this because of how difficult it turned out to be.  Then, I could've made more examples.  this part took the smart students 10 minutes and average students took up to 20 minutes. After, go over the answers, there are actually a few that allow for multiple answers.

Prewiting:
First, I split the class into two 'teams' and told them in their groups to think of ideas for either teenage life or adult life.  Then, I had each group write their ideas down on the board.  Then,
 I had each student make a ven diagram (much better for comparing and contrasting than the stupid one in the book) for this.  I actually ran out of time with most classes for this because of the difficulty from the first exercise.

Day 2: More prewriting and writing
Review comparing/contrasting and words.
Show examples
Describe ven diagrams and tell them to write down their ideas about adults and teenagers on their own worksheets.
After about 10 minutes, discuss possible topic sentences.
Then, have the students write their own paragraphs.


A few other general things that I thought of whilst uploading all of this material.  My classroom has small whiteboard and markers, making written group work very easy.  If you don't, then WORKSHEETS!  I collected and corrected most of their paragraphs to get an idea of what to cover for the big editing day. 
 

Finally, they had to take a writing test for their final exam.  I helped to write the questions, but not really.  The requirements were at least 4 sentences and at least 100 words.  They should pick 1 paragraph to write out of three.

I graded the following:  Grammar, capitalization, punctuation, structure, spelling, and length.  My original benchmarks were too hard even for the top students, so I skewed them a little.  I literally corrected everything, then went through and counted the mistakes and used excel to do proper weighting.  According to my co-teachers, I was very lenient although I think a total of 12 students out of all the classes got 10's.  The lowest score was a 5.