The LONG of the SHORT or the BIG of the LITTLE--you choose!

I’ve always been a fan of the ten-minute paragraph. Okay! Okay! At the beginning of the school year, I begin with a 15-minute paragraph and then widdle down the time over the first few weeks. The ten-minute paragraph is amazing! And the ten-minute paragraph is amazing for all subject areas! It’s short. It forces writers to dive in--and right now! The task comes with an ending. And that’s the end. Done. These formative assessments take very little time to read, yet they can provide teachers with myriad data. Teachers can evaluate the skill(s) and/or content that they’ve just introduced, that students have recently practiced, that teachers are considering to assess summatively. Students become better thinkers and consequently better writers.

Consider the following: 

• Summarize the content of an article in (choose the number) sentences.
• In your own words, what argument is the author making?
• How about 50 words to summarize a chapter? Imagine a 20-page chapter.
• Construct a single question (using teacher-directed Depth of Knowledge matrix level) that extends the reading into a conversation. 
• Create a summary or question that incorporates language and/or vocabulary from a different discipline. 
• Your response to today’s prompt must consist of one compound and one complex sentence. 
• Your response to today’s prompt must correctly incorporate a quote and in-text citation. 
• Today’s 10-minute paragraph must include current vocabulary from (choose companion class). 

Visit the Atelier page for tis week's FREEBIE! It includes both EXIT and ADMIT tickets to help you with FREQUENT, SHORT, but POWERFUL writing in your classroom--regardless of your content area! 
For a longer discussion, check out this link from Edutopia. 

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