An Educator’s General Guide To Help Students Bridge the Gap Between Speaking and Writing July 08, 2014 249 Views Many students distance their spoken thoughts from written language. A student who will actively engage in a discussion may ask, How can I start this essay - mister? The anxiety that creeps up on him or her within an introductory paragraph may stem from educators who give the vague, cliché advice to Begin your essay with a question, story or quotation that grabs the reader’s interest. Instead, let us tell them to approach an essay in the same manner that they would approach discussing the topic with a friend from their neighborhood. Aligning written with spoken language will allow students to write concisely and correct their run-on sentences, fragments and word choice errors. I encourage students to read their drafts aloud, at a speaker’s pace or slower if they are fast talkers. During a conversation, we insert pauses to illicit a response, emphasize a point or simply to inhale or exhale. This is done naturally without much thought on the part of the speaker. Many times, students write convoluted sentences, plagued with errors because they think it is what educators want to read. This written language is at once foreign to them and the reader. This disconnect between speaking and writing leads to many errors and undue anxiety for our students. I indirectly teach students to rely on the sonorousness of a sentence to determine its correctness rather than memorizing grammar and punctuation rules and exceptions. Reading drafts out loud helps many students to identify and correct run-on sentences. This process allows them to identify natural places to end a thought based on where they begin running out of breath, or pause ever so slightly to inhale or exhale. I tell students to end a sentence just before they inhale or begin reading a sentence faster to finish it before running out of breathe. I find it helpful to explain that a comma is required for a half of a second pause and a period for a one-second pause at the beginning of this lesson. With enough practice reading their essays aloud, students will be to identify and correct their -on sentences. Reading drafts out loud helps many students identify and correct fragments. The incompleteness of a sentence is often highlighted once a student begins to audibly read each line. I have found that students tend to write fragments just before or right after writing a run-on sentence. Understanding this may help students who have identified their run-on sentences to add the necessary subject or verb to a fragment. Of course, an educator must explain the concept of a complete sentence to the class if students are expected to identify and correct fragments by reading their essays aloud. Reading drafts out loud helps students identify and correct word choice errors. After reading a student’s long-winded sentence, I usually ask, What are you trying to say? The student may explain the point in simpler terms and I might respond, “Rewrite that sentence just the way you told me,” then leave his or her table to assist another student before he or she asks me to regurgitate the sentence in his or her own words. I tell my students that the simplest of words can convey the most profound meaning and encourage them to trust their vocabularies. Let us begin telling students to get straight to the point, forgo the rhetoric, and encourage them read their drafts aloud and trust their own words and ideas when writing. This process will help them to write better essays devoid of run-on sentences, fragments and lengthy sentences because it will encourage them to bridge the gap between speaking and writing.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 09:05:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015