Do you dread reading some of the writing pieces your students have written because each and every sentence starts the same way? Do you find yourself reading something like this:
I know I have! Here’s a quick tip I want to share with you that I have used with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade writers to help with this problem.
Have your students set up a t-chart. On the left side, students will record a list of words that each sentence begins with as they look through their piece of writing. On the right side, students keep a running tally of the number of times those words are used as sentence starters.
Students analyze their tally marks and choose one word to tackle in their writing at a time. Students go back through and circle each time that word begins a sentence.
Finally, students choose a few of those sentences to revise. They can either replace the word, add a transition, or reword the sentence. Sometimes I have my students repeat the process.
In the end, students are learning a key part of the revision stage of the writing process and you are rewarded with better writing pieces!
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