My Hometown. Hector Fuentes ... Useful Background Knowledge: most
vocabulary in worksheet and essay; descriptive ... locations needed in the
worksheet.
My Hometown Hector Fuentes First Writing about Your Hometown: Sentence Completion/Fill-in Exercises Useful Student Materials: copies of the original model essay and two copies of the sentence completion worksheet (It may be helpful to have the copies on differently colored paper.) Useful Background Knowledge: most vocabulary in worksheet and essay; descriptive adjectives and noun modifiers, understanding of comparative forms, words describing locations, present and past tense, ability to ask and respond to follow up questions Project and read the original essay with the class, checking for comprehension and explaining new vocabulary, especially descriptive words and categories of locations needed in the worksheet Briefly discuss the essay with students: Which words, phrases, or sentences do they especially like? Why? Encourage students to be as specific as possible. Bring out the idea that specific details can help readers visualize a writer’s point. Introduce the pre-writing sentence completion/guided writing worksheet. Project and read through it with the class to clarify vocabulary. Ask students to fill in/complete sentences as Hector might have, using information from his essay. You may want to have pairs of students work on this task together. Remind them that they may not find all the answers/completions in the essay itself, but that they should try to fill in sentences as they think Hector might have. Have individuals/pairs share their answers with the whole class. Which answers were the same? Which answers were different? If there were differences, which answers are acceptable? Give students a second copy of the worksheet. Have them fill it in with their own information about their own hometown. Caution: This takes time. Sometimes you can ask students to complete the worksheet or the planning for it as homework. While students write in class, circulate among students to help with vocabulary, provide individual assistance, and encourage task focus. Have students read their stories to a small group (3-5). Encourage them to add details as they read. Encourage partners to ask reader follow-up questions and to tell readers which part of their story they especially liked. Follow up with a student draft on their hometown in their own words, outside of the worksheet format. Remind them that, just as Hector did, they do not need to write information in the same order as the worksheet, they do not need to include all information, they can include other information, and they should write in paragraphs with many specific details. If you like pre-writing sentence completion exercises like this one, you can find others, on other topics, in Surveys for Conversation by Deborah Hitsky (2003, Pro Lingua Associates, ISBN 0-86647-160-X)
