Oz, Paragraphy, and Writing Strategies
As the midyear language arts test looms, I begin to sweat the dreaded “writing strategies” section. My students must correctly order sentences within paragraphs. Although my students are generally good writers and can construct paragraphs, testing this skill with multiple choice answers causes much confusion.
Project Gutenberg
This year, I’m using my own creation Paragraphy to practice inferring the correct order of sentences in a paragraph. Since I love exposing my students to classic stories, I’ve decided to mine the incredible Project Gutenberg.
For those who aren’t familiar, Project Gutenberg is a database of writing that is in the public domain in the United States (sorry international readers – please share in the comments if you have a similar resource!). You can freely download these books as HTML or a plain text document. The Top 100 includes classics such as:
- Sherlock Holmes
- Alice In Wonderland
- Pride and Prejudice
- Dracula
- Frankenstein
I picked The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to grab some paragraphs from. Why choose a book below my students’ reading level? It makes practicing this particular skill easier plus it is a classic book AND movie that few of my students have experienced. This opens up some great possibilities later if I find the class getting intrigued with the sample paragraphs (a few of my students even connected Wicked with our earlier story-remix project).
Paragraphy At Work
A simple (and legal!) copy from Project Gutenberg gave me the first paragraph from the story:
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar–except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.
I pasted this paragraph into Paragraphy and it generated the following random list of sentences:
- There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds.
- It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.
- Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner.
- There was no garret at all, and no cellar–except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path.
- Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.
- Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.
Consider Your Goal
Using The Differentiator, I created the following objective: Students will determine the rules of ‘paragraph order clues’ using The Wizard of Oz to create a chart in groups of four.Rather than simply asking my students to put the paragraph in the correct order, I’m asking them to “determine rules.” This raises students’ thinking and also connects with their natural understanding of abstract ideas. Best of all, by choosing these classic passages, my students get to dabble with interesting vocabulary and experience outstanding figurative language. Some of my students will even grow intrigued enough to find the book (and its multitude of sequels) in the school library.
I love lessons like this because I feel like I’m killing whole nests of birds with a single stone. I am doing my job as a gifted teacher when my students practice a necessary skill but also chatter on their way to lunch about the ethical issues of the word “munchkin.”