Literacy Project 1

Analysis

This analysis is based off of the writing sample of one short story written by “R,” my fourth grade buddy.  The sample is taken from the rough draft of a creative writing assignment called “The Bottle.”  I believe this story was written in response to a prompt that asked students to write a story about what happens when their character finds a mysterious bottle.  I have analyzed the spelling in both the writing sample and the spelling inventory.

Meaning

In the piece of writing we chose, “The Bottle,” R has responded to a creative writing prompt regarding the events that take place after the character finds a strange bottle.  Because we spent most of our time talking to our buddy about the outline for his next writing piece, we weren't able to discuss the meaning of this piece other than in relation to the prompt.    

Six Traits

Ideas

In terms of assessing his rough draft on the ideas and content, R chose a narrow and manageable topic.  He generally stays on topic but hasn’t developed a clear theme or sense of purpose. Additionally he tends to be drawing on his own knowledge and experience, using a video game sale as the main purpose for the message in the bottle.  While his ideas are reasonably clear with attempted support, the ideas aren’t expanded upon in a way that relates to the prompt at all.  As a reader, it was hard for me to pick out which events were the most important.  Many of them did not seem related to the prompt.

Organization

From this writing smaple, R shows a strong sense of organizational abilty.  His introduction introduced the topic clearly, creating anticipation for the rest of the story.  His transistions, such as “seconds later…” and “thirty long minutes later…” and even “then…” clearly showed how his ideas connected to one another.   In this piece, the sequencing occurs in logical order.  While the writer  controls his pace fairly well, he often does not slow down and elaborate on potentially important parts of the story.  While the title is present, it mainly just restates the prompt. 

Voice 

When reading this writing sample, it was hard to pick up on a distinct voice.  His writing is sincere, but doesn’t reflect his individual perspective on the topic. From this piece, it does not appear that R took many risks in the development.  Although the piece was intended to be a creative writing assignment, he mostly wrote about what he was comfortable with and did not risk revealing much about himself. 

Word Choice
Overall, this piece displays word choice that serves to get the point across, but does not enhance the interest of the reader.  R uses words that are specific and accurate.  At times he attempts to use more colorful language but can go beyond what would be appropriate for the described situation.  He mainly uses familiar words and phrases, but once or twice shows evidence of revision to phrases that are more eye catching such as “so hungry I could eat a…”

Sentence Fluency
R’s sentence fluency, much like his word choice, is generally functional.  With a few changes, he could make this story much more expressive.  His sentences vary in length and structure, however, the included dialogue sounds slightly unnatural.  While he does attempt to vary his sentence beginnings, there are multiple sentences that start with “then…” “it…” and “I…”  He uses appropriate and sometimes creative connectives between sentences and thoughts to show their connectedness such as “Thirty long minutes later…”  These thoughtful transitions allow for some expressive oral reading, but other sentences are still stiff and choppy.

Conventions

Overall, R’s conventions are strong.  His grammar is always correct and his capitalization skills are consistent.  His end punctuation is almost always accurate, however, his internal punctuation is sometimes missing.  For example, a few of his compound sentence did not include a comma prior to the conjunction, and many of his transitions lacked punctuation.  Moderate editing, some of which is included in the sample, would be necessary before taking the draft to publication.  The spelling in this sample is generally correct.  There are a few misspelled words (their instead of both they’re and there, lightning and trafic).

Ownership

While we did not formally engage our buddy in discussion in terms of his ownership of writing, we were able to collect a few pieces of information on the topic. When we discussed the subject of writing with our buddy, he was eager to tell us about how much he enjoyed it.  He sees himself as a capable writer and speller.  He enjoys writing mostly about topics that he has some experience with such as sports and school and likes writing less in the genres of fantasy or adventure.

Spelling
I believe that R’s spelling is advanced for his age.  He missed only 2 words in his spelling inventory (pleasher and oposition).  When looking at his writing, he appeared to be using but confusing double consonants to change the sound of the vowel in the word (shinny, trafic).  He seemed to know that the double consonant changed the sound, but was confused as to whether it made the vowel long or short.  It might be useful for him to pay attention to consonant doubling (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston, 2004).  He also confused their, there and they're, catching himself once as he was writing.  

Lesson Plan

Objectives:

The student will understand the way that a double consonant affects the vowel sound in word.

Standards

3.3.2   Spells words appropriate for the grade level accurately.  

Materials

·         List of words with single consonants that cause a long vowel sound

·         List of words with double consonants that cause a short vowel sound

·         White Board

·         Dry Erase Marker

·         Eraser

Instruction

• The teacher will begin the lesson by giving the student a list of 15-20 words, of varied lengths, that either follow the rule of double consonants creating a short vowel sound or words that have a single consonant and a long vowel sound.  Some of these words will be ones misspelled in the students writing.  Using words from the student's own writing and incorporating this into the patterns in other words will make the spelling more relevant to the student (Templeton and Morris, 1999). 
• The student(s) will use a white board to put the words into categories however (s)he choses.  (Words are written out to reinforce correct spelling as well as to make the student aware of the patterns as he is writing them).  As this is happening, the teacher will be doing a formative assessment to see how the student choses to sort the words.
• After the words are sorted, the teacher will discuss with the student(s) how the sorting decisions were made.  Based on this, the teacher may ask to see if there is a different way to sort the words, or, if more support is needed, may sort them and ask the student what (s)he notices about the patterns (both in spelling and sound).
• The teacher will then explain how words with a double consonant before the vowel sound different than some words with a single consonant before the vowel.  She will then model (using words from the sort as well as new words) how she thinks aloud when spelling about the way the word sounds and how that relates to how they are spelled.
• The teacher will repeat the process, asking the student to spell the words aloud with her.
• After guided practice, the student will independently practice correctly using these types of words in his writing over the course of the week.

Assessment
Teacher will assess student ability to spell words correctly by assessing their knowledge while the student sorts the words and through a spelling test using some of the words from the word sort as well as new words that follow the same spelling patterns.  The teacher will look for correct spelling of the words both on the spelling tests and in the student's writing.