Suzanne Crawford
The Inner Critic
Course: English 20
Skill: Learning Paragraph Structure and the Value of Supporting Details
Directions: When I use this activity, my students need to write an essay about Skip Downing's three inner voices as explained in the On Course materials.
The students need to provide a brief definition of each voice, supply examples from our stories by using quotes, and relate the concept to their own lives. The attached three paragraphs
are printed out, cut into strips, and "scrambled." In groups students must unscramble them and put them in the right order. By doing this, students infer the structure of an expository paragraph by ordering scrambled sentences. They also intuit other concepts such as coherence between sentences, and they have fun in the process. When all groups have finished, we discuss the results of what they learned and how they can use that knowledge and skills in writing their own papers. Also, at this point in the semester, we would have done a read-aloud of Updike's "A&P," on which the attached samples are based.
Skip Downing's Resource Page:
http://www.oncourseworkshop.com/Student%20Success%20Strategies.htm