Three Words

TITLE:  Building Inclusion With Parts of Speech:  Three Words

GRADE:  4-12

MATERIALS/TIME REQUIRED:  pencil and paper (or post-it notes)  15 minutes (pairs); up to one week (full group – a few students sharing each day)

PROVIDE FOR INCLUSION – A You Question, Energizer, or Linking Strategy:  Have students identify the noun(s), adjective(s), verb(s) and adverb(s) in the following sentence:  Over vacation, I went to the north shore of Oahu, to a beach called the “Pipeline”, and watched an exciting surfing competition.

Once the parts of speech have been identified, have students determine which words are the “least informative” as to the main idea of the sentence

IDENTIFY THE OBJECTIVES:

Content Standard:  Use communication skills and strategies to share personal information while practicing parts of speech

Collaborative: Listen attentively, reflect on experience, value diversity

Personal: Reflect on learning experience through personal sharing

IDENTIFY THE STRATEGY:  JOY (a variation).  Students write three sentences about themselves.

One sentence is something that has just happened in your life.

One sentence is one thing you would like to do – a wish for your future.

One sentence is something you like…to do, to eat, a movie, etc.

Once the sentences are written, identify the parts of speech (circle the nouns, underline the verbs, draw a box around the adjectives, make a cloud around the adverbs).  Then choose a word (part of speech) from each sentence that does NOT immediately give away the topic.  Put students in pairs or triads.  Have each share his/her three words.  Then the partner, or other two of the triad are to choose TWO of the three words they want to hear more about.  This can also be done full class, with one student at a time, sharing with the whole community over time, not all in one day.

It is highly recommended that you, the facilitator, model this.  Here is an example:

I just helped my mom move all the furniture out of her house.

I would like to win the lottery and spend the money helping people, without them knowing where the money came from.

I like to walk my dogs while listening to my iPod.

The three words I would share are:  money [noun], house [noun], and listening [verb].  (Notice I didn’t put them in order…this also gives some clever mystery to the strategy.}

REFLECTION:

Content:            Were you able to correctly and easily identify the parts of speech?  What part of speech was most commonly used in your pair or triad?  Is there a part of speech that is more or less informative, as to the topic of the sentence?

Collaboartive/Social:

How well were people listening?  What similarities did you notice in what was shared?

Personal:            Was there a difference in identifying parts of speech in your own sentences, rather than sentences on a worksheet?  Did you think about parts of speech while you were writing your sentences?  What did you like about this strategy?

PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR APPRECIATION:  Invite statements, within each pair or triad as well as full community

AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT:  Tell students you will collect their sentences and choose ONE sentence to grade/evaluate.  Allow students time to check with peers for correctness first.

LEARNING COMPONENTS

►Group Development Process

Cognitive Theory

Multiple Intelligences

Cooperative Learning

Constructivism

►Reflective Practice

►Authentic Assessment