Have you ever wondered how to teach students to eliminate wordiness in their essays? Professional writers edit and rewrite texts repeatedly. This post contains four areas to look for when revising for conciseness. Do not have students memorize these lists. Instead teach the concept of eliminating wordiness by going over these examples. Have students look through their writing to see if they have clouded the meaning they wish to convey with unneeded words.
Have students look for redundant pairs, explaining the obvious, using unnecessary modifiers, and repeating thoughts. Teaching students to be aware of, finding, and eliminating unneeded words will greatly improve their writing. Here is an organizer that will help.Continue Reading
The animated short film On the Same Page is uniquely creative. A news reporter types an article for the newspaper. The reporter types, “There is nothing to report today.”Continue Reading
All third graders and up in our school create a research paper each year. One year students may write about famous people from their social studies text. The next year they write about topics from science. The school year is just too short not to cover multiple skills with the research project.
Sources and the Bibliography
We have the best school librarian. She takes on the task of helping the students with their research. Students must use a minimum of three references: a book, an encyclopedia, and a website. Continue Reading
This “Text Features” blog post contains several free resources for the classroom. You will find anchor charts for text features and parts of a book. It includes two free resources: a foldable organizer on parts of a book and a student reference guide for text features.
Parts of a Book Anchor Chart
The clipart used to create the anchor is from Educlipsand Krista Wallden. The books are from one of Krista’s free sets. The set is really cute and includes a lot of options. Continue Reading
What is an appositive? An appositive is a word or group of words that explain or define a noun. Appositives follow the nouns they explain.
When to Use Commas
Appositives can be either restrictive or nonrestrictive. I teach students to first locate the appositive by finding the phrase that describes the noun. Next, I ask students to read the sentence skipping the appositive. If the meaning of the sentence is clear without the appositive, then it is nonrestrictive [CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.6.2.A]. Use commas to separate nonrestrictive elements from the rest of the sentence. Continue Reading
Teaching students the differences between making inferences, drawing conclusions, and predicting outcomes may be one of the most difficult skills to teach. This series of three posts includes definitions, examples, and activities.
Predicting Outcomes
A reader predicts outcomes by making a guess about what is going to happen. Continue Reading
Teaching students the differences between making inferences, drawing conclusions, and predicting outcomes may be one of the most difficult skills to teach. This series of three posts includes definitions, examples, and activities.
Conclusions
Conclusions are opinions, judgments, or decisions that are formed based on a situation’s facts. A reader or observer collects information. Readers weigh the evidence. The evidence proves what is going to happen or the next logical step in the information series.Continue Reading
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