Thu 7th Nov 2019
After the diary entries we did together, F was feeling inspired and wrote her own mini Famous Five adventure in one of her notebooks. 😍
So I decided to take advantage of this as a learning opportunity. 😂
While the other three were busy playing, I spoke to M by herself to see if she wanted to write a Famous Five story too... We talked about a possible plot: Where could they be? What could the problem be? How do they solve it? Then I gave her some time to write her own story as F started typing hers up on the laptop (the opportunity to type on the laptop if she wrote a story was a good incentive for M!) - Alhamdulillah once she started she got really into it. At this moment, they've both handwritten around 3 A5 sides in the past two days (F's written 6 including her original adventure! She's now doing chapter 2. 😁
The plan is for them to practise typing in MS Word and then practise editing their work. I'll use this opportunity to cover paragraphs, connectives and expanded noun phrases - the only targets they have left from the Year 2 Literacy NC - by going through each concept in turn and giving them the chance to see where they can include each thing in their stories, insha'Allah.
Fri 15th Nov 2019
MashaAllah, their typing has really improved over the last week, both in speed and accuracy. They're only allowed on the laptop in half an hour chunks and maximum of twice a day, so I think keeping the time limited helps to retain the novelty factor and so their motivation.
They're both really into their stories now too, getting their notebooks out and writing in them every chance they get! I'm not at all fussed about story structure at this stage, so the pacing and content isn't entirely there - I'm just happy to see them both loving to write and being able to write continuously for extended periods of time! Their writing style has definitely been influenced (in a good way!) by Enid Blyton's and their sentence structures, punctuation and spelling have naturally improved the more they write, as they reread their work or ask me how to spell something after they've tried and it's not come out looking right.
This week I wanted to recap editing skills and focus on paragraphs. Both girls had typed up a good chunk on the laptop, so I increased the font size and line spacing then printed out what they'd done so far.
First, I asked them to choose a highlighter and to read through their work highlighting any errors (spelling, grammar, punctuation) they may have made.
Next, I talked to them about adding more detail to make their descriptions more interesting. How? Adjectives and adverbs! I had them highlight all the interesting descriptive words they'd used in a different colour. M discovered she hadn't many at all and F thought she should have used more too, so individually I talked to them about where they might add more description in a way that adds to the story (trying not to fall into the trap of writing to tick off boxes, which can lead to awkward sounding phrases which although grammatically correct spoil the story's flow!) and we jotted down words they could insert next to highlighted nouns of their choice.
Finally, we talked about paragraphs again. We reread half a page from the current Famous Five book we're on and discussed where the new paragraphs began - when the topic changed or when someone different started speaking. With a different coloured highlighter, I helped them mark onto their paper where they thought they should start a new line in their writing.
To finish, they took it in turns to edit the highlighted parts onto the laptop. With the rest of their half an hour time slot they were able to continue copy typing the rest of their story - but now they were expected to edit as they typed rather than just copy the mistakes! Most importantly, I wanted them to focus on paragraphs, which is what I would be checking for when I saved their work. MashaAllah they quickly picked up this skill and all their typing since has had new lines in the correct places.
Wed 20th Nov 2019
This week I wanted to focus on expanded noun phrases. Their paragraphs are fine when copy typing - they remember to add them in with no prompting from myself - but when writing in their notebooks they become so absorbed in their ideas that they forget to put them in! At the very least, I've told them I expect to see a new line everytime someone new speaks... So we'll see how that goes InshaAllah!
On the whiteboard I wrote the simple sentence "The sun shone." and had the girls label the noun and verb. I explained to them what a phrase was, highlighting it in a different colour, and what the word expanded means, i.e. to get bigger. So an expanded noun phrase is making the noun phrase bigger. How? By adding more detail? How? By using adjectives!
I had them come up with some suitable adjectives for our simple sentence :
The shining sun shone.
The bright sun shone.
The burning sun shone.
We talked about the effect changing the adjective had on us as the reader and why the first example wasn't very good, even though it made sense. It didn't add anything to the description! So they needed to think about what their adjective adds in helping the reader imagine what you want them to imagine...
The girls then continued to take turns typing their stories (and writing their stories!) and I told them I would be checking to see which interesting adjectives (or maybe adverbs) they would be using to help improve their stories.
Tue 3rd Dec
They've been writing their stories for almost a month now and not showing any signs of stopping! MashaAllah!
The plots are long and convoluted, making sense but not refined, with a lot of random subplots and unresolved ideas throughout... But the point is both stories flow, have been a great vehicle for teaching grammar and sentence level work, and the girls are enjoying themselves doing it!
Yesterday we spent the whole day outside - football in the morning then Thinktank with friends in the afternoon - the latter being a little spur of the moment compared to what I originally had planned to do... So I commented that the girls had spent that day not really doing any "work". But actually, they'd spent the time I was getting dinner ready writing their stories in their notebooks, so I corrected myself to say they'd spent a day playing and the only work they'd done was Literacy - to which M said, no, they hadn't done any work because writing their stories was still playing to them! Well, they do it whenever they feel like it without any prompting from myself so I suppose she's right. 😂
As a result of their story writing, the twins can now write in paragraphs confidently and are familiar with the different grammar patterns of direct speech (at the start of a sentence, end of a sentence, new line new speaker), understand the editing process and are aware of the need to include interesting descriptions to make their writing more compelling.
I think I might look at clauses and subclauses next with them, InshaAllah, as they've used some in their writing naturally so there's no harm in labelling what they are? 🙃
