CONVENTIONS Key elements? Key Elements? Examine Primary Rubric to identify key qualities of this trait 1.

CONVENTIONS• Key elements?

• Key Elements?

Examine Primary Rubric to identify key qualities of this trait

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Key Qualities of the Conventions Trait for primary students• Primary writers can learn to use:

– imitation and real letters– upper- and lowercase letters– phonetic spelling– the conventional spelling of simple words– end punctuation– capital letters at the beginning of sentences,

on proper nouns, and in titles– “s” for plurals or possessives– indenting and contractions

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Conventions

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Score, then comment…

• Examine sample papers

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Sample C comments…

• Look how you’ve added spaces between your words. That’s new for you.

• I like how you’ve started every sentence with a capital.

• Why don’t you add this word to your personal spelling list?

• Thanks for putting a period at the end of this line. It makes me stop for a minute.

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Remember…

Whoever holds the pen is the

one who learns how to edit.

Correcting Papers is NOT the same as

Teaching Editing

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Other things to share with parents:

• Conventions are only PART of writing.

• How you will teach revision and editing

• Examples of student work that has been edited by their child. Note they may be working only on one convention!

• Samples of student work in folders to show how their child has improved.

• The PRIMARY SCORING GUIDE

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Weapons of Mass Instruction:

Worksheets in Isolation. Daily drills.

• Students do not become skilled at using conventions from inauthentic practices.

• Students do learn conventions by practicing on their own writing.

• Conventions have a rationale, and primary students need to know that rationale.

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Teaching the Trait of Conventions

• Set aside Editing Time & Space

• Ask & prove WHY—Emphasize being CLEAR over being RIGHT

• Model

• Keep writing tools handy

• Look at errors one at a time.

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A Conventions-Ready Classroom

• Post & copy a developmentally appropriate list of editing symbols

• Make a list of the editing skills you have taught and expect students to use.

Editor alert! Does my paper have…

-my name? -my best spelling?

-space between words?

-punctuation at the end? etc… 12

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Teaching Conventions to Primary Students:

• Use the Victor Borge technique… see the Center Grove Wiki !!

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Teaching Conventions: Any activity that allows students to practice:

• identifying reasons for editing

• understanding the difference between revision and editing

• keeping editing in proportion—ideas come first

• learning and using editing symbols

• developing a proofreader’s eye

• letting students be their own editors15

Conventions Warm Up

• Prep: Post a sentence (or paragraph) without punctuations

• Exercise: Have students punctuate the passage and share. Discuss the different results

• Follow Up: Talk about how punctuation is essential to meaning in communication

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dear john I want a man who knows what love is all about you are generous kind thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior you have ruined me for other men I yearn for you I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart I can be happy forever will you let me be yours gloria

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Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous. Kind, thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be happy forever. Will you let me be yours? Gloria

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Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn. For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be happy forever. Will you let me be? Yours, Gloria

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Conventions Focus Lesson with pucture books

Picture Book Connection:

Grammar Tales

Scholastic, 2005

Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynn Truss, 2006

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From Student Writing Samples• Space . . . the finnel fruter . . . • The ride I hated most at Disneyworld was

20,000 Leaks Under the Sea• Goodby by now, but remember, I’ll be back

next yer with more brains . . .• My gramma’s ring is too small for me now but

I’ll always have her dangling from my necklace.

• With caller I.D. you know if it’s a salesman or a hated friend.

• I’m a bad writer, so I hope that this is enough to convince you.

• There are many in sex in the rain forest.

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• …the genital breeze…• We were stuck in bummer to bummer traffic.• It’s me. Your breast friend.• I would change the rule about runing down the

hall. Example, if your butt is on fire are you ever going to run…

• Jeffery Dahmer was one of the greatest cereal killers of all time. . .

• Do the ninedickmanover to see if the person was breathing.

• She coulden’t even spell “culdn’t” Her spelling was abyzmall.

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Read, Reflect, Apply

• Examine p. 256-273 in Culham

• Discuss in small group

• Fill out “Strategies to Try” sheet

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Key Qualities of the Presentation Trait• Margins that frame the writing/pictures• Carefully formed letters• Neat, legible printing• Letters/words that stay on lines• cross-outs/smudges kept to minimum

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Score, then comment…

• Sample papers

• Comments… My eyes are happy when they read papers this neat. Thanks!

• Your margins make a beautiful frame around your writing.

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Getting Started With the Traits

Ease up on yourself!

One Teacher’s Success and a Game Plan to Get Going…

Before and After

Let’s face it. We all yearn for the kind of progress Debbie Stewart makes with her fourth graders. Look at how one of her special needs children was writing at the beginning of the year…

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• With a lot of work, and the traits always at their side, Matthew and Debbie worked hard to improve Matthew’s writing skills and here is an example of what he was writing on his own by March of that same 4th grade year…

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What Matthew’s Teacher Knows…

• Everyone can improve – labels aren’t an excuse.

• Writing well is hard work.

• Small steps, every day.

• Celebrate, perspirate, rejuvenate.

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