Oral Writing Essay

Our class has been working on oral writing since the first day of school.  However, up until this point, it has just been individual students sharing individual sentences.  I decided that this week it was time to take the plunge and do our first oral writing essay as a class.  I have to be honest.  I was not sure how my class would do with it.  Out of my 18 students, 14 are well below grade level, with 6 of those in special education.  However, I decided that the only way for both my students and myself to learn was to just do it, so we did.

I knew that it would be important for my students to have a model to follow for putting together this essay, so I used the model that I had been teaching my students in writing.  Below is a picture of it that is now hanging up in our writing area.
                                                                         

The go sign was an answer to a question.  This became our topic sentence.  When I introduced this model to my students I placed a rock in each of their pencil boxes and asked the question, "What did Miss Ray give you?"  I then instructed them to look in their pencil boxes for the answer:  Miss Ray gave me a rock.  They now had their topic sentence.  Each star represents an adder.  (This is what Whole Brain Teaching calls a detail.)  Before each adder they had to use a "traffic light" transition word.  They needed a green light transition word before their first adder, a yellow light transition word before their second adder, and a red light transition word before their last adder.  Below is a picture of my traffic light transitions.

The stop sign after the stars represents the students' concluder.  (This is what Whole Brain Teaching calls the concluding sentence.)

This model worked really well and resulted in some great writing!  Since the students knew it so well, I decided that it would provide a great framework for their first oral writing essay.  The topic I chose was the retelling of a passage that we had been working on all week in reading.  It was about a mom and her daughter who made cupcakes together.  The students had read this passage numerous times and had used the "Connect 5W+H" Brainie to both write and answer who, what, when, where, why, and how questions about the passage.

Since it was their first time doing an oral writing essay, they needed some guidance, but I was amazed at how well they did.  The first student was able to tell the topic sentence.  Then it was time for the adders (details).  I wasn't sure how my students would do with remembering in order the important details, but they did really good.  I did not even have to remind them to use transition words.  Each student who shared remembered to use the correct transition word with the comma (zoop), when it was his/her turn.  The funnest part, however, was watching them ask for help.  If a student was not sure what to say next, he would say "help me".  The class would then gather around and give suggestions.  This part was a little shaky.  The kids did not quite understand that they each needed to give their own suggestions, instead of chiming in together and following each other.  I think this happened because my lower students are unsure of themselves, so they followed the lead of my few stronger ones. Since I have so many low students, it sounded like one big chorus.  Come to think of it, that is probably a good thing.  When the student sharing heard an idea that he wanted to use, he used "Class Yes" to have the rest of the class return to their seats, or in this case their spots on the floor. After the third adder, the next student knew that he was to give the concluder (closing sentence).  Once again, I did not have to remind this student, because the model was there for him to follow.

I have to admit that it was a pretty awesome thing to see.  I am looking forward to doing more oral writing essays on a variety of topics.  As my students' writing improves and they get more practice at doing oral writing essays, we should be able to move away from such a strict model.  I am very excited to see the progression.