Using a plan

Following on from the blog about planning and how five headings can give you the paragraphs, whilst the subsequent five bullet points can give you the content of those paragraphs, I received this short story about Psyche and Venus, in response to the final question in their comprehension homework.

Psyche's father had just left her room when suddenly, Psyche heard a blood curdling scream echoing through the corridors. She leapt out of bed, only to find her father dead on the floor. He had been murdered.
High in the sky and a long way off, the goddess Venus laughed with delight at the sight of Psyche's face. She would definitely win this time.
Two weeks later, Psyche was playing in the garden with one of her sisters. She was playing hide-and-seek. When it was her turn to 'seek', it was as soon as she turned her back, she heard another scream. She ran to her sister who was dead on the floor.
Two more weeks later, she was petting her dog, when another scream occurred in the next room. In that room, her second sister lay dead on the floor. Psyche's eyes filled with tears.
Venus' evil laugh grew louder at the sight of Psyche. She thought to herself, 'if all this doesn't work then it is me who is not beautiful.'
Venus was right. Soon after her second sister's death, Psyche's hair lost its shine, her teeth lost their sparkle and her lips lost their ruby colouring and nobody ever thought she was beautiful again.
So, what is the structure here? What are each of the main headings and where are the bullet points?
If we look at the story, Mia has used,

1. Death of her father
2. Venus gloating
3. Psyche's sister dying
4. Second sister dying
5. Venus gloating more
6. Loss of Psyche's beauty

So in fact, Mia used 6 boxes, creating six paragraphs and the continuity of the story can be seen in the way the boxes, or paragraphs, follow on, one after the other.
Looking at the six paragraph titles, what were her bullet points?

•  death of father
• father says good night
• scream from the corridor
• rushes out to find father dead

• Venus gloating
• high in sky laughing
• knew she would win

• Psyche's sister dying
• playing hide and seek
• Psyche covers eyes
• screaming
• death of sister

..and so on. Although this is a de-construction of the story, one can see how a plan such as the one outlined before can be used to create a very good plan of what to write. Eventually, the student will be able to do this in their heads, but to start with, give them guidance;

1. Thinking of the story, what five major events are going to happen?
2. For each of those events, what is going to happen in each one?
3. What order would it be best to write these events? [give them paragraph numbers]
4. What good words could you use to show off your skills?
5. How are you going to introduce some speech? Where would be good? What are they going to say?
6. Let's think of connectives, which of these could we use and where [I will give you another set as soon as I have typed out the chart]

As you can see, by asking them these sort of questions they can structure what they are going to do and then the writing of it becomes a lot more painless.  

Taking the writing further

When children start to string ideas together, it tends to be more a stream of consciousness rather than a considered project. When it streams, it is either one very long sentence (the unconscious mind doesn't have punctuation) or many short, stilted ones where the object of the story or topic is repeated over and over again.
An example of this would be;

"Jack went into the garden to play. When Jack got to the garden he saw his football and kicked it about. After thirty minutes Jack stopped kicking his football. Jack came inside and had his tea."

the repeat being on the boy's name.
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Or we could have had;

"Jack went into the garden and in the garden he found his football so he started kicking his football about and he kicked his football for thirty minutes before he came back inside and had his tea."

the stream of consciousness. In both cases I am presuming we have used capital letters and full stops adequately, but that too can be an issue.
Then there are the pupils who agonise over what they are going to write because they don't want to write something they think will be unworthy. I know of some students who will spend days thinking of the idea and after maybe a few days of tears, worries, and mum almost screaming, "Please, just sit down and write it!" They produce something of exceptional quality.
So how do we break through?

It's all in the planning

When they first start planning, it will be a nightmare, but as they get used to it, and as time proves how successful it is, the process becomes easier and in the end they will complete it in their heads. Take for example the Blog I recently posted, Phrasing the ideas, that student planned his writing, but it was all done in his head and the final tidying of the piece was completed as he wrote. This is what we are aiming for, but to start with it takes time and practise.

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Setting up the plan

once the title, or the subject of the piece is decided upon, the next stage is to get a series of basic ideas down on paper. Create 5 boxes big enough to get 5 bullet points in each and a title saying what each is about. Then come up with 5 different stages in the story. Here's and example;

Dara catching and riding the dragon

• going to find a dragon
•  climbing into the mountains
• hate heights, hate looking down
• hear a horrific noise and get frightened so I hide
• see a huge, beautiful dragon land just a few metres from me
• recognise the type of dragon
• finding and catching the dragon
• dragon sees me and snorts
• I give it some food with a sleeping potion in it
• dragon eats and drifts to sleep
• put saddle and bridle on it and wait
• dragon wakes up and is shocked
• having a problem riding it
• dragon takes off and loops about
• hang on with all my might
• terrified by being high up
• close my eyes and nearly fall off
• grab his neck and scream
• getting organised and riding into the sky
• dragon realises I am frightened
• is a female dragon, thinks I am a baby dragon
• is nicer to me and is careful
• start to understand
• fly into the sky and enjoy it
• showing those who teased me I have done it.
• fly over the school 
• see boys on playing fields
• swoop down
• frighten them
• they see its me and can't believe it

.....and now the plan is done, the story is all but written. The more they practise this the easier it gets and in the end they will find they are doing this sort of planning in their heads.

The mock test papers and parental support

Naturally, many parents are keen to give as much support to their children whilst they are doing mock tests as they can and some of it will be very useful, some of it will be too soon.

What do I mean by that?

Let’s take the tests the students are doing at the moment with me. We have just completed a Verbal Reasoning paper and this week they will be doing a Non Verbal Reasoning paper. Following that, they will get a maths paper and then back again to a Verbal Reasoning again, and so the round of papers continues…

So when is it best to support and when is it best to wait?

At the moment the students should be watching the Chukkra videos on You Tube and working their way through the whole set. This will give them a superb understanding of the Verbal Reasoning types.

It is a good idea to sit with them when they do this so you have a good idea of what is on them and how they are being shown, so if there is a problem in the future, you have a good idea of what/how they need it re-explained.

[As yet, I have not found a set of non-verbal as good as these verbal ones but I keep looking.]

So what about this ‘wait’ bit?

I’m coming to that. Let’s look at the homeworks over the next few sessions;

Homework 7	1st verbal (test A)	Leave all going over the questions until next test of that type
Homework 8	1st non-verbal (test A)
Homework 9	1st maths (test A)
Homework 10	2nd verbal test	Go over 1st verbal then let them do 2nd verbal test
Homework 11	2nd non verbal test	Go over 1st non-verbal then let them do 2nd non-verbal test
Homework 12	2nd maths test	Go over 1st maths then let them do 2ndmaths test

Once they have completed the test, the best thing to do is to leave the support to just before they start the next test, making sure they are clear on the sections they found hard last time. When it comes to the verbal skills, they will have had more time to watch the videos and should find what had been a problem before, will not be now. Make sure they are happy with all the areas and then leave them to try test two.

The same with non-verbal, although they will not have the videos to support them here; the Schofield and Simms book on non-verbal is very good. It is good to remember though, non-verbal is just one part of one of the papers they will be sitting, so if they find some sections tough, not to worry. All the same, give them the support by looking at different questions together and spot the answers; then let them do the second test.

Do the same with the maths paper; go over the first test just before they are due to start the second and so on. It gives them the reminders when they need it and the support when it will be most effective.

This will give us a good idea of how they are progressing in each of the subject areas as well as them learning more and more how to cope with exam situations and the timings they need to reach in the end.

At the moment, let them run over the allotted time, just indicate with a line to say where they got to. It is a good visual indicator for them, and as I say to them all, the timings tells you how much you can get done in the time at the moment, and the completed questions shows you how much you know. Both will get better the more practice you have. And it will.

But what about the English?

By the time we get to homework 13 we will be starting to do some of the parts to the English paper. We have completed many comprehensions already and have practised writing short stories which could be written in the 30 minutes they will be given, so we have already begun. The Word Booklet has included various aspects of English and we will be developing that over the next few sessions.
By the time we get to the end of the summer they will have completed many test papers in all areas and should be ready to do their best in the actual examinations in September. We are still in early days, so its eyes down for a busy remainder of the year.

Full for academic year 2014/15

I am already fully booked for the coming academic year

2014/15

and am three-quarters full for 

2015/16

If there is anyone thinking of joining me next year,

I am only taking names just in case

someone drops out.

Sorry.

Phrasing the ideas

There are many components to a sentence which will create a theme, or engage an audience. As part of a mock examination, a student in year 6 was asked to produce a piece of work ‘off the top of his head’, which is what is expected of them when they reach that examination hall.

He was given the title, ‘A Busy Place’, and a few pointers;

®     People rushing around

®     It was crowded

®     Everyone hurrying

®     Activity and movement everywhere

®     Lots of noise

The idea of the pointers was to ‘push’ the students in one direction and concentrate their ideas into a 20 minute piece.

I have included a copy of it here, and I am certain you will agree, this shows great developing skill in producing very good quality short stories.

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The street was filled with people babbling with excitement. The deafening noise of the horns and hooters enveloped the mind isolating it from other sounds. People crowded the once silent street, coming from every direction. Adults and children jostled in front of the glass window, peering in.

People leapt up and down, trying to get a glimpse in the store; children crowding under adults, trying to get a sneaky peak. Cars honked their horns trying to move through the bustling crowd.

Every once in a while, the crowd would become rowdy and raucous as someone would strut out of the shop holding their treasure, wrapped in a massive cardboard box; the new Grand Theft Auto.

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The trick here was to take an event he had some recollection about and develop his recall of that time. 

A game parents can play is to think of a time and describe it without giving away when it was and what it was you were all doing and the other person has to guess when and what it was. Once they have guessed your one then it’s their turn to describe without explaining. At first they will find it hard, so you must start with a simple example; maybe brushing your teeth or washing up.

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What we are aiming for is a child who can recall things they have done or have witnessed first hand which they can draw upon and re-live. This is where the internet and the television fall down because they do not involve the person in the experience and therefore it does not get stored in the brain in the same way. For them to be able to use it in their literacy they have to have experienced it, for it to be a memory not a piece of information. 

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So , as parents, we can help them here too, by going out and experiencing different things, taking them out of their comfort zone and getting them to; have a picnic in the park if its something you don’t usually do, or going for a walk in the woods, or kicking leaves through the park, or walking along the sea front when its windy (not gales obviously), but get them out and experience the natural world without spending oodles of money. 

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These memories will go into their storehouse ready to pop out in their stories, as it did with Ollie, when he wrote his 20 minute piece.

Dara just keeps catching a dragon

Dara has created so many endings but this is a beauty, using the words from the lists in such a way as to show she really knows their meaning. The way she has structured it is very good as well and leads one to estimate high levels for her construction and content.. This is what a 10 year old can do, and its at the top with the other excellent ones I have the pleasure of reading.

..... It was absurd! He couldn't ride a dragon if he was scared of heights. It was really feeble that he couldn't.

He heard a peculiar noise that sounded like no other. It came from the Forbidden land outside of his island.  He knew he really needed his father's consent to go over and visit the other island; otherwise he would have angry neighbours and an angry dad. Not so good at this time.

He thought to himself I will go over anyway, that noise doesn't sound very tranquil. He went to find his friend Seamus, (who owned a boat) and Dara had to persuade Seamus to go, eventually Seamus said yes and Dara got his bridle and saddle just in case, and they set off!

When they got there it started to rain, and as quick as a flash they saw a lump of something. They poked it and it jumped. IT WAS A DRAGON!

"Oops!" said Dara. "WOAH!" said Seamus. The dragon licked Dara's hand and he jumped in shock. 15 minutes later Dara liked the dragon and he decided to take him for a spin. "Bad idea...." Seamus said. There was a debate and the dragon managed to stop it by roaring and burning down a tree. Dara then realised that the odd noise was the dragon's roaring fire.

Dara named the dragon, Fire Cracker. He fixed on the saddle and the bridle was strapped to Fire Cracker's nose and they flew off. All over the villages! They boys that dared him to ride a dragon were staring at him in disbelief. When Dara landed the boys had made him a veil to wear whenever he's riding his dragon. The boys wanted to unite with Dara so they had a cool friend that could ride a dragon.

Do you know what Dara did then? Made them learn how to ride a dragon....