Sentence Variety

I find it can be a little tricky to look at media consumption and journalism in the classroom these days. This isn't a comment on a lack of material - there's plenty that can be discussed - it's more a case of not necessarily wanting to politicise the room or (more precisely) not wanting to get waylaid by the partisan nature of today's media. 

In the lesson below I want to focus on writing skills and manipulation of language without students getting too fixated on the 'hot topics' these elements are invariably tied to. There are no doubt some great lessons that could focus on political metanarratives but in this case, when teaching Stage 5 (Year 9 in particular), I want to force a more laser-like focus onto the way things are said rather than what is being said.

It's a little cheesy and hokey, but the best way to do this is to invent a news story.

For a lesson on teaching sentence structure, we can start with this invented feature article extract:

Not really caring how people would react, controversial scientist Krayon Lewis published his research on a free website that could be accessed by anyone. He laughs in a mischievous way and I feel deeply uncomfortable. I want to go home. Who is this guy? Krayon is a botanical scientist yet he thinks about cars a lot. He recently drove from Melbourne to Brisbane.

"My research will revolutionise the world," he says confidently.

He picks up his research paper, looking around for an audience, and then reads aloud.

"Fuel made from orange peels are the future," he reads aloud.

No one is listening. I cringe when he laughs again. If this is his vision then I'm not sure how much attention he will get. Krayon keeps on laughing. The scientist will keep on cackling until I eventually leave the room. 

A printout of this extract can be found here.

Engaging with the piece

Read through the above extract with the students and then discuss sentence length with them. Where is the longest sentence? Where is the shortest? Ask students to use a highlighter to identify as many verbs as possible. 

After this has been done, introduce this PowerPoint. It takes students through the three different sentence types, models their construction, and prompts students to think about sentence diversity when writing. 

The PowerPoint presentation includes the following information:

Sentences: Using Variety

Slide 1. Sentence Types. 

There are three main kinds of sentences:

1. Simple sentences
2. Compound sentences
3. Complex sentences

In the next three slides you will see examples and explanations of each. Use these to come up with your own definitions and examples for each of the sentence types.

Slide 2. Simple Sentences.

A simple sentence is a single-clause sentence. 

A clause consists of just one verb.

The sentences here are all simple. 

Here are examples from the feature article:

• He recently drove from Melbourne to Brisbane.
• I want to go home.
• No one is listening.
• He laughs in a sinister way.
• Who is this guy?

These are simple sentences. This means they only have one verb. Where is the verb in each of the examples?

Slide 3. Compound Sentences.

Compound sentences are longer and have two independent clauses.

And, if, but, so yet, or, as - these are the connectives used to join clauses in compound sentences.

Here are some examples:

• Krayon is a botanical scientist yet he thinks about cars a lot.
• I cringe while he laughs again.
• He laughs in a mischievous way and I feel deeply uncomfortable.

These are compound sentences, which means they have two verbs and a connective. Where is the verb in each clause? And which part of the sentence is the connective?

Slide 4. Complex Sentences.

A complex sentence has multiple clauses that rely on each other.

The clauses are dependent on each other. This means that if you broke the sentence into simple sentences then only one of them would make sense as a sentence on its own, like this:

COMPLEX SENTENCE: "The scientist will keep on cackling until I eventually leave the room".

BROKEN INTO TWO SINGLE SENTENCES:

                The scientist will keep on cackling.

                Until I eventually leave the room.

If you read these two sentences completely on their own, which one would make more sense? Why?

Slide 5. Examples of Complex Sentences

There are lots of different kinds of complex sentences. Use the following to model your own complex sentence examples:

• Not really caring at all how people would react, controversial scientist Krayon Lewis published his research on a free website that could be accessed by anyone. 
• He picks up his research paper, looking around for an audience, and then reads aloud. 
• If this is his vision then I'm not sure how much attention he will get.

If we broke these up into separate clauses (and potentially removed any connectives), which clauses would work on their own as simple sentences?

Resources

Feature article extract - worksheet

Sentence Variety - powerpoint

After walking through the PowerPoint, students will be primed to use a variety of sentences in their own attempt to craft a feature article extract of a similar length. A second lesson could then prompt the class with a follow-up to the above extract in which Krayon Lewis is revisited one year later, or you can allow students to invent a story of their own devising.

Students can then swap stories with a peer and identify examples of each of the three sentence types. 

This resource was developed and adapted specifically for this blog. 

Scaffolding Paragraph Construction

If there's one thing I was never explicitly taught as an English student back in the 1990s, it was how to write an essay. Even in my time as a senior student, I don't remember ever being conscious of how to write one... I wrote them, of course, and I got good enough marks to justify my later life choices, but essay and paragraph structure weren't ever focused on in my days as a student. 

This presented me with a challenge when I became a teacher. The day I became an English teacher was the day when I first had to start thinking about how essays were written. I observed my fellow teachers and backwards-engineered A range student responses, learned about PEEL paragraphs for the first time and, a bit later, ALARM. I've since come across a range of acronyms that help to formularise and quantify the process of paragraph writing in English... PEAL, TEAL, PEEEL, ICAV, CLACEL, OREO. 

I don't begrudge any of these. Whatever works, right? I just don't have the experience of learning these as a student, and I think it's important for teachers to have such experiences to call upon. Being inside the learning process as student is very different to constructing it as teacher.

I've since tried my hand at writing in the aforementioned formulae for this precise reason, sometimes under fake student names so that I can get an honest appraisal from my teaching peers (a daunting process, let me tell you!). Thankfully, my essays have received appropriately high marks when I've done the 'fake student' thing, but I have to admit that I don't think I do my best writing in the context of using paragraph formulae and scaffolds. When I meet students who have an instinct for writing I encourage them to avoid squeezing themselves into the acronyms, at least as much as our system allows.

That's enough reflection for now. Below is a task that I wrote a couple of years ago while I was thinking about paragraph writing. I've since used it with Stage 5 classes (both Year 9 and Year 10) and it works pretty well. 

It relates to the documentary Blackfish and aims to familiarise students with the idea of supporting a concept statement with relevant examples and analysis. The task does not require students to come up with said examples and analysis as I wanted to explicitly and specifically hone in on the actual construction of the paragraph. As I've explained before on this blog, I think we sometimes get too open-ended as teachers and become afraid to show students exactly how things are done because we don't want to be seen as doing the work for them. Unfortunately, this approach can leave students completely in the dark and they can become unwilling to attempt tasks that they perceive as just too complex.

Here is my thinking:

• Academic paragraph writing is complex. It requires the synthesis of multiple skills - conceptualising, judicious selection of evidence, the ability to write sentences in a variety of structures, use of appropriate vocabulary in a high modality, use of a wide and subject-specific vocabulary (IE. Metalanguage), the use of a paragraph structure that makes internal sense whilst also operating within the wider context of an essay, and memorisation of detailed content that can be recalled in essay-writing contexts that may not allow for notes to be on hand.  
• In order to get students to even start doing the above, I need to remove some of those skills from the playing field. I need to zoom-in on just one or two things and make sure students are confident with these first, and I need to do it in a way where students have the ability and confidence to complete the task whilst also still learning new things (that zone of proximal development we're all familiar with from our university pedagogy days).
• In this particular task below, students are being taught TWO things - the ordering of information within a paragraph, and how to generate a concept based on two different examples from a text. 

The task:

1. Students are given this worksheet.
2. Students pick two pieces of evidence from the worksheet that they think are similar, or that they like the look of. Higher ability students can fill in details about the point being made by each piece of evidence.
3. Students think of something they could say that brings these two pieces of evidence together. What common idea is within them? How are they similar? What argument do they both support? This is then written onto the top of the sheet.
4. Students then write a paragraph that starts with the concept statement they have created and copy the two examples in after it. This is done under timed conditions (9 or 10 minutes for Year 9, 8 minutes for Year 10).

There are three things to watch for when students construct the paragraph. These are things we may take for granted, or things that have not been explicitly taught to students before.

• Make sure the students are putting their sentences one after the other in the paragraph. Some students will start a new line for every sentence which makes the paragraph look like three small separate paragraphs. It can mean a couple of things when students do this, the most worrying of which is that they may not think of all these separate sentences as being part of something cohesive that belongs together. Some students won't learn this through being told ahead of the task, they will need to physically write it wrong first and then have the teacher correct it in front of them in person. 
• The two examples will need some adjusted wording or a connective clause of some sort between them. EG. Additionally, In addition to this, A further example of this is, Moreover, etc. Not all students will instinctively know this, especially if they haven't done a lot of (or any) academic reading. 
• For students who have no trouble assembling the paragraph quickly and understanding all of the above, this could be the time where you introduce the idea of a linking sentence at the bottom that consolidates the concept of the overall paragraph and ties things back to a bigger idea (the thesis). Stronger English students will be able to do this quite well in Stage 5.  

Happy paragraphing!

Disclaimer: The above resource was created specifically for this blog in my own spare time. 

The English Book Room

Along with my wonderful colleague Dette Therese, I run a Facebook group for NSW English teachers that focuses on sharing resources and building a culture of open collegiality and practical support. Term 3, 2021, has been quite a challenging time to be a teacher in NSW, so to keep our teachers' Facebook group focussed on something positive I started sharing a few examples of books we usually tend to find in the high school English book room so people could discuss them.  

It's been absolutely amazing to hear from teachers all over the state and beyond, with a range of experience, as we shared our impressions and ideas regarding individual books. It pepped me up a little each day to see so many passionate teachers willing to share their thoughts on class-set novels. The goal was to prompt a few thoughts with generic questions:

• Anyone taught this one before?
• If so, which year groups?
• Is it a winner?
• Who's seen it in their bookroom?
• Would you / do you still teach it?

...and anything else a teacher might want to add. 

Anyway, I've collected the information into the following excel spreadsheet:

The English Book Room (Version 1, Sept. 2021)

I've kept it in a spreadsheet so the information can be sorted by the reader - you might be looking for the most popular options, and can therefore sort by the 'recommended' column, or you might prefer to browse through alphabetically by author. 

In the spreadsheet you will find:

> Book Title 

> Author 

> Year of Publication 

> Country of Publication 

> Key Words indicating themes and genre 

> What kind of class it suits

> How many teachers recommended teaching it 

> How many teachers recommended not teaching it 

> Content Warning = things that could prompt potential issues in the classroom when teaching it

and

> A separate tab at the bottom that contains comments/reviews from teachers on each title.

Some Notes

• This is a living document. It will change and get updated periodically to reflect the ongoing accumulation of further information, and additional permissions granted by teachers to have their contributions included. Some elements may appear a bit rough at the moment but I'll continue to enhance the spreadsheet as more is added.
• More than 200 teachers contributed to this so I want to say a massive THANK YOU to each and every one of them. It's a great testament to how social media can be used in a positive fashion for collaboration.
• Each of the teachers featured in the document gave their permission to be quoted. I am only uploading the spreadsheet here and in the Facebook group. Downloading your own copy is fine so long as it's non-monetary and for your own use. 

Books Featured So Far:

• Does My Head Look Big in This by Randa Abdel-Fattah
• 10 Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah
• The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah
• Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
• The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl
• The Divine Wind by Garry Disher
• Hitler's Daughter by Jackie French
• Macbeth and Son by Jackie French
• Mahtab's Story by Libby Gleeson
• Once by Morris Gleitzman
• Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman
• Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• Journey to Eureka by Kerry Greenwood
• Deadly Unna? by Phillip Gwynne
• That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton
• I Am David by Anne Holm
• Taronga by Victor Kelleher
• Onion Tears by Diana Kidd
• Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence
• Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
• So Much to Tell You by John Marsden
• Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden
• Boys of Blood and Bone by David Metzenthen
• Raw by Scott Monk
• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
• The Loblolly Boy by James Norcliffe
• Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien
• Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park
• The Harp in the South by Ruth Park
• My Sister Sif by Ruth Park
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• The Wave by Morton Rhue
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• The Cay by Theodore Taylor
• Blueback by Tim Winton
• The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn

Thank You:

Acknowledgement to the English teachers who contributed and graciously gave permission to be included here:

Alan Lane, Amanda Elizabeth, Amanda Fournaris, Amanda Hannah, Amelia Drinkwater, Amelia Kerr, Amy Greatrix, Angelina Catherine, Angell Harris, April Flavell-Adams, Ashleigh Ftynogiannis, Bec Atkins, Bec Jane, Belinda Diddly-Doodly, Belinda Ryan, Belinda Sinclair, Bernadette Gurr, Bernadette Virwani, Bernhard Huber, Beth Kermode, Brunella Pagano, Carla Beattie, Caroline Brosnan-Kennedy, Catherine Byrne, Catherine McCrae, Cathy Greaves, Celeste Fernandes, Cherie Clark Obrien, Chris Hardy, Claire Low, Clairie Ormiston, Cosette Sheridan, Crab Apple, Cristie Reid-Heuser, Danielle Asquith, Danielle Cleary, Darcy Moore, David Searle, Debbie de Graaf, Denise McKinna, Detter Therese, Deyel Bokor-Charlier, Dhara Des Fours, Dia Zois, Edwina Adelaide, Edwina McCarron, Eleanor King, Elif Tirzik, Elizabeth Ford, Emily Beach, Emily Bosco, Emma Jane Hope, Erika Monk, Erin Graham, Erin Stewart, Ez Fong, Fadia Abousaleh, Faye Cazouris, Fergus Gardiner, Fez Chepe, Fiona Lugnan, Francesca De Leon, Gavin Raymond Brown, Genine Howard, Georgia L'Bank, Georgina Lindsay, Georgina Philpott, Grant Sciberras, Hannah Gierhart, Hannah Rappell, Hannah Thompson Geraghty, Hayley Chisholm, Hayley Sharkey Crowshaw, Hellon Wheels, Imelda Judge, Isabelle Marzano, James Clarke, Jamie Barnes, Jane Drabble, Janelle Stenner, Jarita Banerjee, Jay Goocher, Jeannie Baker, Jeffrey Campbell, Jemma Messer, Jennifer Purssell, Jennifer Waljae, Jenny Holmes, Jess Laxton, Jessica Ansell, Jessica Campbell, Jessica Mann, Jo Bickford Sturgiss, Jo Gresham, Joanna Jennings, Joerg Gruenfeld, Josephine Camilleri, Judith Ridge, Julie Renee, Julz Jewels, Juvena Baldry, Karyn Mooney, Kate Bradley, Kate O'Sea, Katelyn Parrott, Kathleen Emma, Kelly Mack, Kelsey Rae, Kerri Yates Green, Kerrie Guest, Kimberley, Kirilly Farrell, KJ Burke, Kristi Ryan, Kristin Smith, Kristin Vlasto, Lara Hancock, Laura Gabrielle, Letitia McCubbin, Lexi Hunter, Linda Grats, Linda Holloway, Linda Officer LisaPisa Pot, Loren Yaslana, Lorena Najarro, Lorrine Eggleston, Louise O'Reilly, Lu Mac, Lyn Tiernan, Maddie Lee, Mandy Jane, Mark Cochran, Mark McDonald, Markus Joseph, Marney Meredith, Meg Clarke, Megan Gilbert, Mel Marin, Melanie Bailey, Melanie O'Nions, Melinda Giveen, Melinda Lee, Melinda Taylor, Melissa Anne, Melissa Anthony, Meredith Healey, Merrilee Lennon, Michelle Johnson, Michelle Nooroa Katuke, Michelle Patricia, Michelle Renshaw, Michelle Sloan, MJ Logan, Narece Thapa, Natalie Bluhdorn, Natalie Jones, Natalie Quimby, Natasha Audrey Joseph, Nicole Taylor, PamPam Potter, Patricia Fay, Paul Cullen, Paula Madigan, Pauline Griffiths, Peta Clark, Phoebe Black, Rachele Haigh, Rebecca Lea Grant, Rebecca Millhouse, Rebecca Ormand, Rebecca Rowlings, Rhys Hernan, Rob Lockett, Robert Klein, Roberta Wolsey, Rony May, Samantha Jackson, Samantha McFayden, Samantha Miller, Samantha Woolnough, Sandra Lee, Sarah Lee, Sarah Marie, Sarah Wellington, Semir Kuljanin, Sharon Rae, Simon James, Sofia Carmensita Whitehouse, Sophie Kenna, Stacey Treloar, Steve Upsall, Steven Call, Stewart McGowan, Sue Atkins, Sue Harper, Suzana Curcuruto, Suzanne Smith, Tamara Jill, Tammy Borthwick-Mathurin, Tate Williams, Tennielle Willis, Teresa Rodd, Tim Creighton, Tracey Adamson, Ursula Jones, Vicki Denton, Victoria Keech, Wayne Crich, Yosheda Tracey-Lee

* Apologies to anyone I've accidently left off, accidentally left in, or misspelt the name of. Let me know if this is you and I'll fix it up straight away!

Romeo and Juliet: A New Translation

 

About a year ago I put up a new 'translation' of Shakespeare's Macbeth that could be used in a mixed ability Stage 5 classroom. The provision of this as a single PDF allowed for the printing of booklets that could be read by the students without scanning back and forth to compare the modern English with Shakespeare's English (as is the case with the No Fear Shakespeare editions). Below you will find a similarly translated version of Romeo & Juliet that can also be used in a mixed ability Stage 5 classroom.

My reasons for doing this are as follows:

• I've gotten a lot of use out of the No Fear editions over the years but I wanted something that Western Sydney kids could engage in an easier way. Some of the language in the No Fear editions can feel 'clunky', or overly slavish to the original text - sometimes to the point of losing the essence of what Shakespeare was actually trying to say. For example, references to ancient Greek or Roman deities just don't make the same impact on teenagers these days. Why not replace such a reference with something else that gets the same point across?
• I've found that junior students can sometimes get confused by the reading pathway of the No Fear editions as they present the two versions of the text side-by-side. This is great for examining specific extracts but I think it can slow down the process of just enjoying Shakespeare's characters and plotting, especially if these are students who are already resistant to reading a 400 year old play.
• By working through the text and translating it myself I found I got a much clearer idea of what was happening in the play. This kind of close reading was incredibly valuable to me as a teacher. 

Undertaking this process also helped me form new opinions on things I hadn't really considered. I mean, it probably doesn't help that I'd never read the entire play from start to finish as an adult, but anyway... here are some of my favourite realisations!

• Romeo isn't in love. He just wants to have sex. By modern standards, the relationship he has with Juliet is actually kind of toxic. It's hard to read it so closely and not get the impression that Shakespeare is knowingly exloring the emotional detriment of a codependent relationship.
• Nurse is an incredibly irritating and self-contradicting character, and possibly one of my favourite Shakespearean comedy creations.
• It's actually a really rude text - plenty of people have written about this, but I never quite realised how rude it was until I got to the bit about medlar fruits and open arses.
• I take back what I said about Nurse, I think Peter might be my favourite comedic character in this play. The bit where he tries to talk to the musicians who have arrived for Juliet's wedding is still funny after all these centuries.
• Friar Lawrence is the most important character in the whole text. He encapsulates the play's theme of duality and reflects the Elizabethan concept of the Great Chain of Being through his discussion of the spectrum that exists between sin and virtue.
• The random introduction of the character 'Petruchio' into the Tybalt-Mercutio-Romeo fight scene led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about ghost characters. These are essentially characters that writers put in early drafts of texts and then later, while removing said character, accidentally remain in one or two references. Another ghost character, Valentine, is also mentioned earlier in the play - intended as Mercutio's brother but mostly removed when Shakespeare wrote later drafts.

Anyway, enough waffle, here is the play:

• Romeo & Juliet translated

(Disclaimer: apologies for any typos in the PDF above - I didn't get a chance to do a second draft as I was keen to give the text a try with my Year 9 students this upcoming term) 

Teaching Theme with Year 9

My Harvest Home by John Glover

Imagine this. It's Week 1 of Term 1, and I have a class of 25-odd Year 9 students, fresh from their triumphant journey through Year 8, ready to face a new year with a new English teacher.

I stand at the front of the room. The first topic for the year is Poetry.

Crickets chirp.

Poetry can sometimes be a bit of a hard sell when it comes to teaching 14 year-olds. And these are students I've never taught before; it's Day One, Topic One. I don't know any of these kids yet. 

The weeks start rolling by. I've decided to focus on the Indigenous perspective of Australia as seen through the lens of poetry, drawing on ideas from this text:

The students respond well to it. We learn about some techniques, how to annotate a poem, and what context is: the time, the place, the reasons a poet might write a certain poem. But a bubbling and largely unacknowledged bassline rumbles under it all: theme. So I ask, What ideas are being communicated? 

My students look at me blankly.

High school English is a curious beast for students to come to grip with. Many come along in Year 7 quite well-equipped with knowledge of grammar, sentence construction, techniques... but one thing tends to remain elusive; what is a 'theme'? Even by Year 9 a lot of students are still trying to get their heads around it.

A theme is an idea, or a concept. The terminology here, like a lot of things in teaching, can be tricky because these words are used in different ways in different contexts. 'Concept' is now being used with a very specific purpose in the English Textual Concepts framework, so it's probably best to steer clear of this term. I actually also prefer to avoid the term 'theme' because 'theme' can have specific connotations relating to grammar and music, but it's a term that's quite difficult to get away from in English due to its ubiquity. 

So I try to stick to 'idea' for the most part, though I am guilty of reverting back to theme with grades 7-9. The materials here refer to 'theme'. 

Back to the point of this blog: my Head Teacher has been liaising with Wayne Sawyer from Western Sydney University over the last 8 months as part of a research project concerning mini-lessons (a teaching phenomenon pioneered by Nancie Atwell in the U.S.), so I've taken this approach to teach theme. 

The PowerPoint presentation is just two slides. The first slide explains what a theme is, and students can make a few notes about it if you like. Then the next slide is a 1835 painting by John Glover called My Harvest Home. 

The point of using a painting in a poetry unit is to drive home the transcendent nature of a theme. I want the students to make connections between different kinds of texts with the theme as the common factor. By examining different mediums that explore the same idea, students should hopefully be able to identify this one common factor that stands out. My Harvest Home is a colonial Australian painting that taps into the pastoral myth that formed the basis of late 19th century Australian identity. Students don't need to know this, but the vision of European settlers farming in the sunshine provides a provocative counterpoint to the version of Australian history that's seen in most Aboriginal poetry. 

The second slide features a collection of questions designed to provoke student thought about the ideas that fuel this artwork. It can be discussed as a class, and then the teacher can use this discussion to come up with a class response (that's what the white rectangle is for on the slide - it's a space for a class definition).

Theme and context are tied very closely together, and I found it useful to bring things back to the over-arching ideas of the unit with a series of questions that reinforced prior knowledge about context and perspective. 

1. What kind of person do you think John Glover was? What can you guess about his context from this painting?
2. 1835 Australia... Whose point of view is missing from this text?
3. Why do you think that is?
4. Do you think this painting is a realistic depiction of 1835?
5. If this painting were a poem, what kind of words would be used? Make a list of 15 adjectives, verbs and nouns that could be used. 
6. Write that poem!

Resource:
1. PowerPoint presentation on 'Theme'