Before helping the group address this question about writing from James, you may want to review what Robert has written about his Essential Sentences idea at:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/11/16/essential-sentences/
https://benslavic.com/blog/2013/01/30/essential-sentences-2/
Ben,
I figure this might be helpful to us during these dog days as we get into more reading and writing.
I have been thinking about getting students writing. It’s very difficult on the students, I think, to write in any way besides in “freewrite” mode. Of course during a freewrite the students aren’t looking at an example passage, because that would be more like copying than writing; all they have are the word wall and maybe a few other posters.
I am thinking especially of Essential Sentences, a particular favorite of mine, for which students write a few sentences as captions to pictures that depict what happens in a story. It has always seemed to me that doing essential sentences “cold,” that is, without looking at the passage, is too difficult. Because a freewrite is about language “flow,” the students thrive without any passage to look at for guidance. But essential sentences has to be a lot more careful than a freewite. I actually like to say to my students that the essential sentences activity is a refined version of a freewrite.
Anyways, I’d be interested in opinions on this. Should students be able to look at the reading itself while completing essential sentences? If so, how does it feel like writing and not copying?
I’ve got one quick compromise that I’ve been trying recently: During essential sentences, show the students a 50/50 version of the reading from textivate.com. That’s the one where half the letters are left blank. This forces the students to think as an author, but hopefully not to such an extreme that would upset Krashen. They have the model of the passage, but aren’t just copying. They have to think like authors and actually have to consider all the grammar (like the endings of words) – even if they don’t realize that’s what they are doing.
Sorry if this was a bit rambling. This was my overload day!
James