Mark’s focus for our session was preparing for his Year 10 English test. He knew this test would entail writing an essay. Mark would be writing an essay on Scott Anderson’s Triage.
Mark explained the main themes contained in book and how the plot and characters are intertwined within the main themes.
Firstly, Mark and I reviewed what we had covered in our previous sessions about structure, grammar and spelling. Reviewing prior learning is important and provided us with another opportunity to discuss and correct misconceptions.
We have also been reviewing sentence structure. Chapter Seven focuses on Better Sentences and commences with the 10 things you need to know about sentences.
Sentence Sense is explained, followed by a checklist for Better Sentences with further explanations and examples following.
Mark and I wrote our own essay topic based on the text to practice. Writing a practice essay would give Mark an opportunity to complete an essay on the book.
Guilt is one of the themes in Scott Anderson’s Triage. Discuss
We reviewed Steve Peha’s What? Why? How? organisation tool which Mark has used previously. This tool provides a framework for Mark to ensure a logical response to an essay question. Mark proceeded to write a logical answer to the question. He used quotations to support his arguments, paragraphs and was reading back and thinking about his spelling whilst writing. After writing his first draft (copy below) Mark reviewed his draft and wrote a corrected copy.
Cheers Nina
NB. Mark has seen an Occupational Therapist to review his hands and handwriting. The review has highlighted a number of issues with Mark’s hands. Therapy should help enormously and improve his handwriting.
Nina Davis: Teaching & Learning in Australia 