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Roulette WritingAuthor(s): Pamela J. FarrisSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 1, Children's Choices Favorite Books for 1988 (Oct.,1988), p. 91Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20200022 .
Accessed: 28/06/2014 10:26
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Practical teaching ideas
smudge, dread, terrace, and easel.
Students could complete a worksheet which might look like the second Illus tration.
your Mlodlbmdtlh?r ?l SfwuAje
SflrteHwrui you ireuL a Retract on easel
The emphasis of this tool is not on artistic output but on the student's abil
ity to make a connection between the new and the known.
The picture box worksheet requires students' active involvement and also focuses on the relationship between
words, both characteristics of effective
vocabulary instruction. It also com bines two recommended strategies for
improving comprehension: providing direct instruction in word meanings and the use of imagery. Regular use of this tool should help develop the vo
cabulary and visualization skills so vi tal for improving comprehension.
Ford is with the University of Wisconsin
Oshkosh.
Roulette writing Pamela J. Farris
In the intermediate grades, both good and poor readers and writers benefit from a change of pace in assignments. Roulette writing provides the opportu nity for all students to use both their
reading and writing skills coopera tively.
In roulette writing, students are ran
domly placed in small heterogeneous groups (4 or 5 students). The teacher, who may elect to join a group, pro vides either a title or beginning sen tence of a story so that everyone is
writing to the same topic.
After 1 minute, the teacher an nounces "Finish the sentence you're writing and give the story to the person on your right." Receiving a new sheet, the students read what has been written on it and continue writing the story from that point. The teacher interrupts again after IV2 minutes, repeating the same instructions.
As the stories progress from student to student, the teacher increases the
length of time between exchanges so as to give the students ample time to both read the story and continue the main focus and tone of the piece in their own
portion. This continues until everyone in the
group has contributed to each story, with the last student who gets each sheet responsible for completing the
story.
Children in grades 3 through 6 find this enjoyable, particularly as a once a
week break from more formal reading and writing instruction. Lower ability students encounter success as they contribute to the final products of 4 or 5 different stories. Since the emphasis is on content, the grammar and spell
ing become less of an albatross. Since the groups are heterogeneous, there are good, average, and poor writers in
all of the groups. If a student does not
recognize a word, she merely nudges her neighbor on her left in the group, who tells her the word.
This is also a good activity for prac ticing writing and reading in cursive. Students become more conscious of their handwriting and tend to strive to
make their portion of the stories legi ble for their peers.
Farris teaches at Northern Illinois Univer
sity, DeKalb, Illinois.
2_. 3._ 4._ 5._ 6._ 7.
<o
1._ 2._ 3._ 4._ 5-_ 6-_ 7.
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Be A Star
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5. _ 6._ 7._
Directions Choose an area of interest for each point of the star.
As you read a book in this area of interest, record the title on the numbered fine and Indicate that title by writing that number in the
drei? in the point. From Harry B. Miller, Northeast Louisiana University, Monroe, Louisiana, and
Mary Michael Campbell and Phillip Feldman, University of South Alabama,
Mobile, Alabama.
?N THE CLASSROOM 91
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