CHECK OUT TWO MODELS OF ABC PARAGRAPHS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

I learned about Exploratree through Lucy Gray’s list of  new del.iou.us links that I receive as part of her blog’s RSS feed (I do wonder how she does that since her links don’t appear on her blog).

Exploratree is a site that has a series of “thinking guides” that can be adapted by teachers and completed by students.  They appear to basically be well-designed graphic organizers, and include titles like “Thinking Boxes” and “From a Different Angle.”

I’ve begun to think a lot recently about developing more structured writing “prompts” to give to students after we do “Read Alouds” (short texts I put on the overhead and read…aloud).

For example, Kelly Young from Pebble Creek Labs, who provides extraordinary curriulum support to our mainstream English and Social Studies classes (and to many other high schools nationally), has us use this prompt after we ask one specific question:

Answer the Question

Back up your answer with evidence or facts.

Comment from a more personal opinion or perspective.

Nothing too sophisticated, but effective.

I don’t anticipate using Exploratree too extensively, but I think it could be a source of good ideas for new structured Writing Prompts to use with my English Language Learner students.

I’ve put the link on my Teacher’s Page under Graphic Organizers.

Here are two examples of the ABC paragraph responding to the question “What do people join gangs?” ABC_and_PQC_Paragraph_Models