After reading chapter 2, I immediately saw a way to incorporate sentence expansion into my already planned curriculum. We were about to write an essay. Students are generally proficient at finding a detail to support their claim, but they lack skills in elaborating about it or explaining the context around it (we call that "leading in" to the detail).
Through the concept of sentence expansion, I was able to show them what they had been doing vs. what they could do to strengthen lead-ins and elaboration. Here are my abbreviated notes to illustrate what I demonstrated to students:
Original lead in: Kenny says,
Detail: "You can't trust a cripple."
Original elaboration: This shows he's rude.
Final: Kenny says, "You can't trust a cripple." This shows he's rude.
With sentence expansion:
Revised lead in: After Kenny found out Freak alerted the cops that they might be hiding in the tenements, Kenny says,
Detail: "You can't trust a cripple."
Revised elaboration: Saying something rude like that shows he doesn't care about Max's friendship or life. He only cares about himself.
This mini-lesson worked well to improve student writing for those two skills.
Through the concept of sentence expansion, I was able to show them what they had been doing vs. what they could do to strengthen lead-ins and elaboration. Here are my abbreviated notes to illustrate what I demonstrated to students:
Original lead in: Kenny says,
Detail: "You can't trust a cripple."
Original elaboration: This shows he's rude.
Final: Kenny says, "You can't trust a cripple." This shows he's rude.
With sentence expansion:
Revised lead in: After Kenny found out Freak alerted the cops that they might be hiding in the tenements, Kenny says,
Detail: "You can't trust a cripple."
Revised elaboration: Saying something rude like that shows he doesn't care about Max's friendship or life. He only cares about himself.
This mini-lesson worked well to improve student writing for those two skills.