Writing Analysis Update

First I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful as well as helpful comments.   I have spent a lot of time thinking about the questions that were brought about regarding my choice of lesson plan, and based on the rough draft that I had of Jill’s work, I felt that paragraphs and run-on sentences were a real issue in her writing.

The interesting thing about this student was that her final draft was actually edited and typed by her teacher, which I found surprising.  I had my buddy read out loud her final draft to me, while I followed along on her first draft and I had a hard time following because the final draft was so different.  Initially, I was not aware that her teacher had typed her final draft, but when Jill was reading the last paragraph she fumbled with the words because the teacher had used the wrong name in the story.   At this point I realized that my buddy had not even read her final draft, in addition to not having the opportunity to create a final draft.  Jill told me it was because she was a slow writer and that it would have taken her too long to publish. 

Therefore when analyzing my buddies work, I felt that her writing could use some help regarding editing, and focusing ideas.   This made me think about paragraphs, but I feel that I could even go further and begin with sentence structure like Tess mentioned.   But my goal is that through working on creating a strong paragraph my student will also practice sentence structure.  Jill is very sharp and can comprehend really well, even though her reading and writing skills are fairly low, therefore I am thinking that working on paragraphing, sentence structure will also be gained through this activity. 

As for spelling, I really struggled with whether or not I should focus my lesson plan there, but I decided that both spelling and paragraphing were places that she needs help with, and I was more inclined to work with paragraphs than spelling.  I based this decision on what my buddy told me about the words she misspells or misreads, she is not familiar with those words, and they are not in her vocabulary. 

I have decided to maintain my original lesson plan, but I hope emphasize the concept of sentence structure into the lesson as well.