This Analysis was based on a writing sample that we obtained from S, who is a girl in the 4th grade at a local Elementary school. The sample we were given was chosen by the student as one that she was proud of and interested in having us read. It was a 6+ page, double spaced and handwritten, rough draft of a story in response to a class-wide writing prompt about waking up to find out that your pet could talk. We also had a spelling inventory that was administered on January 18, 2011.
Ownership and Meaning of the Pieces
Even though this was in response to a writing prompt, S. seemed very involved in the story that she was writing. She told us that the cat named “Fuzzball” was based on her own cats and some of the funny things that they have done in real life. She also incorporated people that she knows and even details from her own life. For example, she told us that she put canning jars, or “water jars” in her story because she had recently been at the house of a family friend and she was canning peaches and it interested S. While reading this sample, it was fairly obvious to us that S. went out of her way to try and bring excitement and personality into her story, and that she was enjoying telling us about the day that Fuzzball talked.
S. definitely sees herself as a writer. She told us that she writes for fun, at home and not necessarily just for school purposes. Last year she wrote a story called “the Wheelbarrow” as a Mother’s Day present for her Mother. She says that she gets her inspiration from her own life and from reading a lot of books. She seems to be a prolific reader who reads many types of genres, among which are historical fiction, contemporary fiction and fantasy stories.
The Six Traits
Ideas: S. had a lot of good ideas and drew from her real life knowledge and experience. She included a lot of details, but the purpose of some of the details was not always clear and they did not always help with supporting her ideas.
Organization: Organization is one area that I believe that S. could use further guidance and support. The introduction to her story was the most thought-out and cohesive part of her story. It began very strong, with purpose and was very interesting. But after the first page and the introduction of the talking cat, her story continued on as a “bed to bed” story where she woke up and the day just happened as one thing after another without a real purpose or drive to the story. For example, she introduced the arrival of her friend Abby for a play date, but this whole episode in the story had no relation to the cat who talks, nor was it ever developed. It seemed to be there for no purpose. After the first page, the story is just a serious of random events, none of which help to forward a story, despite the use of energetic language and very good descriptors. The story ends abruptly, leaving us with many questions and no sense of cohesion.
Voice: S. has a very good sense of how to relate to her reader. She used phrases that conveyed interest and excitement. The entire piece reads as if she were energetically telling us a story, and she uses phrases such as “Much to my surprise…”, “Eagerly she blurted…” and “I had no clue what…” to draw the reader in. The narrative was personal and engaging, including personal details and an attempt at dialogue.
Word Choice: While reading this rough draft, it was clear that S. was making an effort to use words that were interesting and conveyed a mental picture. She would self –correct; crossing out words as she went and writing more interesting word possibilities above them. For example, at one point in the rough draft she changed “quiet knock” to “muted knock”. She also used many detailed descriptions within her story that created mental images, such as “fuzzy pink pillow”, “thin high heeled black shoes”, and “Abby started dancing around like a person in ballet”. I was also struck by her use of lively verbs, such as “blurted” and “plugged”. At a few spots in the piece it noticeable that she had discovered some of these more interesting phrases and she overused them, although this is something that might possibly be corrected in the editing stages.
Sentence Fluency: S’s sentences vary in length and structure and have a good feel to them. There was not a lot of repetitive sentence structure that detracted from the author’s voice, and she did a very good job of varying the beginnings of her sentences. There was a rhythm to her words, as if she were speaking them.
Conventions: Even though this was a first draft, S’s conventions were very good. She will need to revisit her paragraphing, although this might be corrected when an attempt is made to help her with the organization of her ideas and story. She self-edits as she writes. At several places she would cross out a verb and correct the tense above it. Her capitalization and punctuation is accurate, though she will need help in properly formatting the dialogue in her story.
Spelling
S. made very few spelling errors in her first draft of this story, and many that she made she self-corrected as she went by crossing out and putting the correct spelling above. (staires-stairs, ansering-answering, and comepletely-completely). At one point in the story she used the world “cubbord”, tried to self-correct several times, and then went to get help because it was a word that she didn’t know. The correct spelling was written by the teacher in green pen. When we gave her the spelling inventory, she spelled all the words correctly except cellar (celler), civilized (civiliazed) and opposition (oppisition). From the words in these two examples, I believe that S’s spelling level is most likely somewhere around early to middle derivational relations (Bear, et al, 2004). S. might benefit from a review of word endings and suffixes, and help with identifying base words and their relationship to their derivatives.
Lesson Plan
Objective:
To help the student determine the message that she wants to convey in her story and narrow down her subject matter.
To help the student use a graphic organizer to organize her ideas, resulting in a more cohesive story containing both an introduction and a conclusion.
Standards:
EALR 1: The student understands and uses a writing process.
1.1 Prewrites to generate ideas and plan writing.
EALR 3. The student writes clearly and effectively.
3.1 Develops ideas and organizes writing.
3.1.1 Analyzes ideas, selects a narrow topic, and elaborates using specific details and/or examples.
3.1.2 Organizes writing using a logical organizational structure.
Materials: First draft of story, pencils, paper, post-its if desired for idea web.
Instructional Strategies: This lesson will take place as a one-to-one writing conference.
First, I will compliment her on her very good introduction, use of lively verbs, good descriptors and on some of the good idea that she has in her first draft. I will then transition into expressing my thoughts on the apparent randomness of the events in the story and how I was confused by a few things, such as the appearance of her friend for a play date. Did this have something to do with the talking cat, which was the main focus of the story? I will also point out that the lack of a conclusion left me with many questions and a feeling of wanting to know more about her interesting story.
I will help S. to use an idea web to organize her ideas into a cohesive story.
I will help her to focus on what are the main “happenings” of her story that she wants to tell her reader. Do these all relate to the main subject of her story?
I will remind her of how an idea web works, using her rough draft as we go through the steps. What should go in the large center bubble? The main idea, etc… What should the other main ideas of the narrative be? What details did you write about and where should they be on this graphic organizer?
What doesn’t need to be included to support your story, what is important to you? Is there a beginning, middle and an end?
After modeling how this is done and I am sure that she is confident in what she needs to do, I will send S. to her desk to work on her idea organization some more, emphasizing that what she wrote was a very good first draft, but this will just help us to make it a better flowing story.
After she has gotten to a point where she feels comfortable with her ideas, I will have another writing conference with her to see how she is progressing in rearranging her ideas into a cohesive story, emphasizing a beginning, middle and end.
Assessment: The teacher will check the student’s revised draft for a beginning, middle and an end. She will also be looking for the continued presence of good word choices and voice in the new draft.
