Project 1

Analysis:

What would you do if your pet greeted you one morning by talking? In this prompt writing, my buddy did a fanciful telling of what his conversation could have been like with his pet bird. Although my analysis focuses on the published version, there are areas which could use improvement if he were willing to remake the piece again.

Spelling and Six Traits Assessment

In our first meeting my buddy told me that he struggles with spelling. This is all too obvious from his drafts and our spelling assessment. He struggles with vowel patterns. In his draft he wrote “bake” (back) and “thot” (thought). In the spelling assessment he also struggled with double letters and endings. For example, he wrote “shoping” (shopping) and “pleser” (pleasure). He struggled with several of the endings such as in fortunate, confident, and opposition. Since his story was “published,” the final piece followed conventions and was typed.

The majority of the sentences in this story start with I, he, or then. Exceptions include the prompt sentences and the “finally” in the concluding paragraph. Changing the way the sentences start would help the story flow better. Additionally, his writing lacks transitions.

A few passages stand out in this story, but most of the words are bland. In one place he says he is “terrified” because his bird is talking to him. I have a feeling he had help with this word, because I did not see it on the original draft. He does have one interesting and original phrase which shows his voice in the writing. “I thought that I was a goner,” he says, meaning he thought he was going crazy or possibly dreaming. Although other elements show his voice, these same elements lead to a story with disjointed silly ideas which are hard to follow. More details and transitions would help to solidify the meaning and flow of the story.

This leads us to his ideas and organization. He has many ideas which work well with the theme of “when animals could talk.” His first two paragraphs work well together. He says that his bird wakes him up by talking. He thinks he is going crazy and falls back to sleep. The bird wakes him up again and now he is terrified. However, the last two paragraphs contain too many ideas which are not organized well. If he were willing to work on this story again, I would focus on this section. We would look at all of his ideas in the last two paragraphs and see which ideas are most important. Then we would figure out how to organize them so they flow. With organization I would introduce transition words and phrases.

Ownership of writing:

His writing is sloppy (not uncommon for his age). He has good unique ideas; however, his writing lacks depth. From examining his notes on Tuesday I saw very little writing for that day’s work. In looking at his drafts, they too show that he has little ambition to write. There is no real ownership of writing. Much of this stems from his struggle with spelling (a struggle I can also identify with). He may also struggle with being able to organize his thoughts. He can read fast and knows how to decode words up to the sixth grade reading level; yet, he seems to lack global understanding and ability to recall details. He needs a way to succeed and have fun at writing without being held back by his weaknesses.

Lesson Plan:

Objective: to give my buddy immediate and easy success “writing” a story.

Standards:  3.1. Develops ideas and organizes writing.

Materials:  iTouch with microphone, wireless connection, Free app – Story Robe, Free app – Dragon Dictation, lots of pictures loaded on the iTouch, computer with internet connection, paper, and pencil.

Instructional Strategies:
We would begin by looking through pictures on the iTouch. I would ask my buddy  what pictures he likes. After he picked out a few, I would ask him to make a story out of the pictures.
We would open Story Robe. This program allows the user to make a story in three easy steps. We choose photos, edit the pages, then record narrative.
After the story was done we could publish it and view it on another computer. From the computer we could play the story and record the narrative using dragon dictation. I would make sure to check the spelling which dragon dictation made from the story.
If the dictation did not work, I would ask him to retell the story. This would be a good step to add detail. Once we had a usable text via Dragon, he would then copy the text onto a printed version of the story or onto black note paper.