Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :
Pre-step (before sharing the published model): Have students write to this writing prompt: "Write about a special day from your past. You might have been alone; you might have been with family or friends. You might have been home, but you might have been somewhere else. Write five or six sentences that help me understand what happened on your special day."
After everyone has a draft, ask students to count the number of words in their sentences and write the numbers in the margin next to each sentence. Then, have your students circle the first word in every sentence.
Explain that good sentence fluency in writing often means that the writer has sentences of different lengths, and that good sentence fluency has sentences that start with different words. Today, you'll be teaching your students to think about these two qualities as they prepare to revise their paragraphs about their special days.
But first, pull out this lesson's recommended mentor test: All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan, which is a story about a many special days and a very special place.
Step one (sharing the published model): Patricia MacLachlan’s story, All the Places to Love, is a story designed to bring you back to the places and times in life that you love. Her use of prepositional phrases takes you to Eli’s favorite places. In her sentences, she varies the placement of the prepositional phrases (from beginning, middle or end), creating excellent sentence variety.
One effective way of teaching students to read fluently is by pointing out that sentences should be read in chunks. Prepositional phrases--one of the most obvious chunks to spot in reading--point out the when and where of sentences.
MacLachlan has done an amazing job at structuring her writing in a way almost forces the reader to say it in a fluent, meaningful way. I encourage teachers to take this story/poem and write in on chart paper. Search the poem--whole class--to spot the prepositional phrases. Next, have the students go to their personal readers, chapter books and picture books and go on a prepositional phrase hunt. Have each student share one. Discuss how these phrases, in and of themselves, can be used as a writing prompt; a longer sentence can be composed just with a good prepositional phrase's inspiration. Doing this will help link the fluent reading strategy to sentence fluency in their writing.
Read All The Places To Love to your class. Have them pay special attention to Patricia’s use of prepositional phrases to create fluency in her writing. Emphasize this sentence flow in your reading of the book. When your students have a good understanding of the power of prepositional phrases, use the buttons below to get them started on a piece of descriptive writing that pays special attention to the use of phrasing. They can incorporate as many of the phrases below as they would like. Encourage them to also use their favorite phrases from the class's prepositional phrase hunt."
Tell your students they will be revising their special day paragraphs, using interesting and meaningful prepositional phrases.
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