Hello!  Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a happy and healthy holiday season.  It sure was a busy one!  I promised to post after the holidays and had every intention of getting back to you last week.  However, as you may know the East Coast was hit with a “bomb cyclone” and my school district had TWO snow days on Thursday and Friday.  So…in the past 16 days I’ve  only had one work day. Wow!

But let’s get back to it!

Today I’d like to share another tool for helping students add evidence to their argument pieces.  This strategy is for students who have included block quotes that are too large in their writing.  Remember, a good rule of thumb is that quoted text should only take up about 5-10% of the writing.  The difference with this cohort of students is that they  feel like they can’t cut the block quote because the information is important for the reader to know.  So, these writers cannot use the previously shared Allow Your Writing to Shine strategy, of striking to omit parts of quote that are deemed unimportant.

To solve this problem, students can choose to either paraphrase parts of the quote or use ellipses.  Today’s post will highlight how I teach students to paraphrase their quote (how to use ellipses will follow).

I began this small group with the teaching point pictured below and by showing students a piece of my writing that had an overly large portion of quoted text:

Then, I demonstrated how I chose parts of the quote to paraphrase.  I modeled how to strike out the chosen sentences and then rewrite them in my own words.

Next,  I shared a revised version of my original writing that incorporated the paraphrased sections of the quote.  I pointed out how my entire paragraph had to be reworked a bit as opposed to just plugging in the paraphrased sentences.

Finally, as always, I finished this group by letting students have a go.  Each worked right in front of me on trying this strategy as I coached in and addressed any individual needs.

There you have it! Have your tried any of the strategies I’ve shared with your kiddos?  How did it go?

Let’s keep the conversation going-

Lindsay

P.S. Like what you see? More tools to come- Follow along!