Collecting Sentences

Note: Normally, I do not publish my blog, English Updates, on weekends. However, I publish several other blogs during the week having to do with ideas in English education that are not current, but still useful. On weekends, I will publish samples of these ideas. RayS.

Question: What can be gained by students’ collecting and displaying sentences?

Answer/Quote: “Adolescents enter their middle school reading classroom…and begin reading sentences from charts on the walls. Occasionally someone hands the teacher a slip of paper with a sentence and the name of its author from their outside reading. A girl notices that the sentence she submitted yesterday has been added to a chart; a sentence that a boy wrote last week is also on one of the charts.” P. 92.

Quote: “Students comment on length and sentence structure, word choice and vocabulary, imagery and metaphor, and, of course, the book and its author. They hear their peers talk about what they have found interesting: information, ideas, language, images, illustrations, and the books themselves.” P. 95.

Comment: A wonderful habit to attract students to language. I have been a collector of “significant sentences” for years and years. I still review the sentences from my collection from time to time, and I use them often in my writing. A good way to involve students in language. RayS.

Title: “Sentence Collecting: Authentic Literacy Events in the Classroom.” RB Speaker, Jr. and PR Speaker. Journal of Reading (October 1991), 92-95.