If you work with language learners, you know how daunting the idea of writing can be for beginning writers. It doesn’t have to be though!
An activity I started to integrate this year with my beginning writers is something I call Building Language. It can be adjusted and tweaked for different learning levels AND it’s clear and scaffolded structure makes it easy to follow. The best part about this activity is it starts with literally ANY picture you want!
Images are such an under-used resource…especially when it comes to teaching language learners. Starting with a picture is a simple, yet empowering way to support language learners in accessing – or remembering – new vocabulary. Here is how it works:
Before You Get Started
You can utilize this routine in numerous ways. It could be a writing routine used to supplement ANY content area. You could use it during rotations as an independent writing workshop activity. It could even be part of a daily routine classroom starter! There are so many ways to build this type of writing into your teaching. No matter the format, beginning writers will quickly learn they have more ability than they previously thought!
Regardless, you will ALWAYS start with an image of YOUR CHOICE. Try to pick an image that is fitting for the language knowledge of your learners. Analyze just for a bit to see what type of words students could identify in it and how they might choose to write about what is going on in the image.
Essentially – take a beat to look at it through their lense. This will ensure that by the time you put it in front of them, you’ll have an idea where your headed. You’ll be surprised how often they’ll come up with words, questions, and sentences that you hadn’t considered. This is the beauty of working with diverse learners!
Step 1: Word Level
Step one starts with the word level of language. Students will use the sentence frames: I see and I notice in order to point out details in the picture. Prompt them with questions like, “What do you see in the picture?”or simply point to different things to focus their attention and tap into their prior knowledge.
If you print out an image for each of them and give them little post-it notes, they can label the part of the picture that shows that word.
You can simply have them make a list too. If you want to incorporate their first language, you could have them write the translation of the word next to the English word.
Step 2: Forming Questions
Step 2 allows you to work together to formulate questions using the image. You can see in the image above the sentence frames, question words, and language goals that are focused on in this step.
This step helps your beginning writers think more deeply about the image. This will aid them in the upcoming steps in creating sentences about what is going on in the image.
Step 3: Writing Sentences TOGETHER
In Step 3 we continue the We Do portion of the routine by creating sentences together about the image. Here, draw students attention to the words they’ve already identified. They’ll use these words and combine them with provided sentence frames that will have them creating sentences in no time!
Simply completing one sentence for each frame will be enough for them to get a handle on how to do the next step of the activity.
NOTE: The only thing you want to keep in mind is that since students will be doing this later on their own, you don’t want to take up all of the ideas in this step. Leave room for their minds to create!
Step 4: Independent Writing
Now that they’ve had practice combining the words they identified in Step 1 and combining them with the sentence frames in Step 3, they can move on to Step 4. Here is where they’ll work independently!
They can use any of the words they’ve identified and the sentence frames provided to describe what is going on in the image. Challenge them to come up with combinations that weren’t used in Step 3!
Before the Last Step
In between Step 4 and Step 5, you can compile student sentences into a student book. You can create a classroom book using a combination of the student sentences or you can make a different book for each student using the sentences they personally wrote.
You can keep it simple with paper and pencil, or you can approach it digitally with something like Google Slides. In Google Slides, Canva, or other digital platforms students can type up their sentences and choose imagery to match!
Step 5: Speaking Practice
In Step 5 it all comes together. Here students shift from writing to speaking.
Read the book together as a class. Have students pair up with other students to share their book. Invite family members or other classes to hear what they’ve written. Have them record themselves and share it digitally.
There are a lot of options here that can help students get comfortable with hearing their voice in their new language!
Hit the Ground Running
The BEST part of this blog is right here. I have ALL of the resources you need for incorporating this routine into your classroom. Better yet, it is an EDITABLE template that you can use regardless of what content area or grade level you teach!
The resource includes all of the things you’ve seen so far in the blog. It has teacher slides that allow you to display the image you’re using and EACH STEP OF THE PROCESS. It has a student workbook too. You can duplicate the workbook pages to create a routine for the entire school year! Additionally, you’ll find the Google Slides Student Book options and classroom posters to display the student supports, sentences frames, and thinking points for each step in the routine.
Click on any of the images below to access the resource and download it today.
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