For most of my 14 years of teaching, I鈥檝e assigned 鈥渂ell work鈥� while attending to beginning-of-class duties. For longer than I care to admit, my bell ringers were bad.
These mini-assignments were well-intentioned. My students were writing (writing!) from the moment class began. That was great, right?
My old stand-by was 鈥渞evise this paragraph in 5-7 minutes.鈥� Then I鈥檇 ask for volunteers or call on someone to read aloud a revised sentence and explain how it had been transformed. But I kept noticing simple sentences, uninspired diction, monotone voice. Why weren鈥檛 they getting it?
I have since designed three campaigns to overhaul how my class begins. (By the way, I teach English, but these could be used by any teacher who seeks to improve literacy).
The First Push: Improving Vocabulary and Sentence Patterns
We begin with worksheets. A box at the top of each worksheet contains six to eight words from our weekly academic-vocabulary study. Below that, I list the days of the school week, leaving ample space for student writing beside each day. I assign each day a different sentence pattern from by Ann Longknife and K.D. Sullivan. The challenge: Imitate the day鈥檚 sentence pattern while correctly using a vocabulary word in context.
Plenty of tools are available: vocabulary books, dictionaries, our class set of sentence-pattern books. After several minutes, volunteers share their sentences under the document camera.
Soon, the more competitive students seek to out-do one another by correctly using as many vocabulary words as possible in a complex sentence pattern. They desperately want to share their writing with the class.
After a few weeks, I drop the worksheets. Instead, I write the vocabulary words on the board, adding the number of the day鈥檚 sentence pattern or choice of patterns. (Turns out that limiting the options doesn鈥檛 limit my students鈥� creativity. They need those guide rails to feel comfortable with writing more complex sentences).
Finally, I pull vocabulary words only from our current major unit of study (Fahrenheit 451, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, etc.). On Fridays, we draft a paragraph by combining the week鈥檚 sentences into a coherent unit, adding transitions as necessary. When students share especially impressive paragraphs under the document camera, oooohhhs and aaaahhhs break out across the classroom!
Next Up: Close Reading Done Right
The links between close reading, strong arguments, and skillful writing are undeniable. This campaign is grounded in short articles, blog posts, and editorials I share with students. Students tackle different tasks each day of the week:
Monday鈥擱ead the text from end to beginning, noting sentence structure and academic vocabulary (including jargon). Highlight short sentences in one color, longer ones in another. Note anything unusual, such as rhetorical figures.
Tuesday鈥擨dentify unfamiliar (or especially sophisticated) words found in yesterday鈥檚 reading. Consider synonyms and determine why the author chose that specific diction. (My goal: Help students see how writers find 鈥渏ust the right word鈥� to express their ideas).
Wednesday鈥擱e-read the text and find evidence that helps them determine the author鈥檚 purpose, main idea, targeted audience, and tone.
Thursday鈥擶rite three to four original sentences in a response to the text. In the response, emulate sentence structures or specific vocabulary found in the text.
Friday鈥擲hare yesterday鈥檚 response aloud. (This leads to animated discussions as students voice their opinions on current issues!)
The Final Frontier: Tone Chips
Remember the monotone voices I鈥檇 noticed in my students鈥� writing? I realized that the first few minutes of class were a great time to expose students to bits of writing that are anything but neutral: short excerpts, fiction, essays, poems, drama, speeches.
The first time I tried this exercise, I printed the excerpts on large note cards, then laminated and numbered them. Next: a trip to the hardware store to gather paint chips featuring three to four varying shades of a color. I labeled each tone chip with a word, its part of speech, definition, and synonyms.
Students do something different with the excerpts and chips each day of the week:
Monday鈥擨 give students an excerpt or a tone chip. Students mingle to find the tone that matches their excerpt. They love arguing over a particular tone chip if there鈥檚 competition for one! Once (somewhat) satisfied, each student writes down the tone word and the number of the text excerpt.
Tuesday-Thursday鈥擲tudents get in the pairs established on Monday and reveal their tone/excerpt matches to the class under the document camera. The fun: Sometimes they discover a more precise tone elsewhere in the classroom. It鈥檚 all in the discovery!
Friday鈥擳o culminate, students form a 鈥渢one continuum鈥� around the room. They categorize tones in general, such as 鈥渟ad鈥� or 鈥渉appy鈥� and arrange the excerpts from least intense degree of 鈥渟ad鈥� to the most intense. (Again, there is occasionally some productive disagreement about the rankings). The purpose: Improve their understanding of tone in their own and others鈥� writing.
Yes, these opening activities require a little more front-end planning by me鈥攁nd certainly absorb more class time鈥攖han in the past, but it鈥檚 worth it. Better sentences, word choices, tone perception, and a different kind of energy among us all, setting the stage for more complex and sustained tasks. No more boring bell ringers!
