Graphing Writing?

Yes, you read it correctly; writing is graphable!  Students in grade 7 recently graphed the first 10 sentences in their essays explaining one of the quotes in the novel Walk Two Moons. They also recorded the first 10 words that their sentences began with.  This exercise provides two types of information to the student: do my sentences have varied lengths and varied beginnings. N2SSWTSW means that No 2 Sentences Start With The Same Word in the same paragraph. When we talk, our sentences begin differently and when we write, the same idea holds true. We also say sentences of different lengths when we talk or our language would sound robotic!  A great graph for writing has lines that jump up and down the grid and 10 sentences that begin with different words.  Ask to see your son's or daughter's writing graph when they come home with their work from unit one this week. See if you can interpret the sentence structure! :)

We graphed our writing and are learning more about varying the beginnings of our sentences and their lengths!