SENTENCE-COMPOSING TEACHER'S HANDBOOK

SENTENCE-COMPOSING TEACHER'S HANDBOOK by Killgallon, Don and Jenny. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780578388038.

From ChatGPT in answer to this question: what method is most effective in teaching how to build good sentences? ChatGPT answer: Research in writing instruction points to a clear conclusion: students learn to write better sentences most effectively by studying and imitating well-written sentences while composing their own, rather than by learning grammar rules in isolation. Among classroom approaches, the sentence-composing method developed by Don Killgallon and Jenny Killgallon is one of the most widely recognized examples of this principle. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ In thousands of classrooms within and beyond the United States, Don and Jenny Killgallon’s sentence-composing method has given students tools to become better writers. By focusing on the sentence, the Killgallons in their numerous textbooks for students--all levels, from upper elementary through college--changed the way teachers and their students look at language, literature, and writing. Their first-ever book for teachers, SENTENCE-COMPOSING TEACHERS HANDBOOK is a comprehensive resource for validating, teaching, varying, and assessing the sentence-composing method. The handbook can be used by itself or with any of the Killgallons sentence-composing student textbooks available from Heinemann Publishers or online through amazon.com. For teachers new to the sentence-composing method, this handbook is a valuable and useful introduction, including many classroom-ready student activities. FOR YOUR STUDENTS: An affordable companion textbook titled STUDENT ACTIVITIES FROM THE SENTENCE-COMPOSING TEACHERS HANDBOOK contains all student activities from the Teachers Handbook. Sentence imitating demonstrates that authors’ sentences have “architecture,” and that the structure of the sentence is its blueprint. With sentence imitating activities, students build their own sentences from the same blueprint with surprising ease. Authors frequently, students infrequently, use a variety of tools in building sentences. The sentence-composing method teaches students to use the same variety of tools of authors in their own sentences. Just as infinitely varied music can be based upon just a few notes and chords, those sentence-building tools allow for the creation of an infinite variety of sentence structures. Imitating the sentence-building tools of authors provides the how, but also enhances the what. With the focus on just one sentence at a time, through varied imitation activities, students succeed, sometimes astonishingly, in building sentences like authors in both structure and content. CREATION: THE GOAL OF SENTENCE COMPOSING Imitation and creation often complement each other: a sentence model by an author is both an end-point and a starting-point. Imitating sentences by authors, students borrow something (structure) and contribute something (content). As a result, students understand the link between imitation, the foundation of sentence composing, and creation, its goal. They learn the sentence-building tools of authors, simultaneously discovering their own significant voices as writers, and lastingly hearing the whispering of other voices—those of the authors of their model sentences, whose voices helped students discover their own.