Introduction
Joseph can often express himself verbally in vivid and animated language on any given topic of his choice. His flair for storytelling, imitating voices and acting out movements, can easily draw you into his narration of family dramas. He can quote who said what, and what that person did. In other instances, he can describe the plot of movies, including energetic animating explosions and action, with so much ease. He draws you into his narrative. If I’m not careful, he can take up the whole hour of Writing and not write a single word down. However, as soon as I tell him to write down what he just described to me, he writes this basic three word sentence: “I stayed home.” When I ask him to write more, he writes another basic sentence: “I saw a movie.” I even showed him how to brainstorm and write down his ideas using a graphic organizer. The whole school year, Joseph spent so much time trying to jot down details for his brainstorms, but he never managed to translate those details successfully into compelling written pieces. The saddest part of his writing issues was when the Arizona English Language Learner Assessment (AZELLA) was given. He really wanted to reclassify to a mainstream classroom for his fourth grade school year. Unfortunately, he did not pass. His struggles with writing throughout the school year impeded his ability to write a descriptive paragraph that was acceptable for passing. Now he has to spend another school year with me for fourth grade in my Structured English Immersion (SEI) classroom.
Unfortunately, Joseph is not the only student who struggles with his ability to write a decent paragraph of descriptive writing. Many students in my Structured English Immersion (SEI) classroom have the abilities to describe movies, and video games verbally in vivid details, but when you ask them to write it down, they just write one or two basic sentences and don’t bother to add details. You have to keep asking them to add more details, but every day it’s the same thing over and over again.
I had high hopes that all 5 of my third grade students would pass AZELLA. Of all 15 students in my SEI classroom, only 2 girls were reclassified into the mainstream 5th grade class. A majority of the students performed exceptionally well in Listening and Speaking, reading, and comprehension portions of AZELLA. Writing was where most students scored in basic range.
What went wrong? I taught writing the same way I’ve been teaching English Language Learners (ELL) for the last three years. Every year I enjoyed success by reclassifying a majority of my students into mainstream classrooms. This year I was extremely frustrated and dejected, wondering “How do I fix this?” I had to fix it. This unit is my solution for the lack of success my students have experienced. This school year, I will start over with how I teach writing to my students. My goal is to reclassify a majority of my students. This unit is dedicated to the 13 students I failed to teach writing to.
In this unit I will utilize contemporary art to teach descriptive writing. The main objective of the descriptive writing lesson is to teach students to understand that adjectives give more information about a noun, in this case, the artwork. Furthermore, adjectives can create better sentence structure, and are able to add details to your writing piece. Eventually, I want students to transfer their new syntax sentence skills to learn to write a narrative about an art piece.
Contemporary art will be used to help develop paragraphs. The students will be given a print of a contemporary art piece and they will generate a descriptive word list (adjectives), as well as a list for other parts of a sentence using a sentence frame chart. Using the chart, students will generate sentences. With the help of the teachers, the students will organize the paragraph. The expectation is that students will connect more to contemporary art because it’s a glimpse into modern contemporary life that these students are being raised in. The contemporary art also allows writers to tap into their imagination, and use that to translate into writing. The paragraph will allow students to describe the art pieces, and interpret the meaning behind the art, with guidance from the teacher.
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