Sentence Surgery Editing

A New Way to Do Daily Oral Language: Sentence Surgery

Materials:

Laminated unedited sentence strips, band-aid strips for ending punctuation, small round bandages for commas and quotations, tongue depressors to mark capitalization, large bandages for word transplants (to write words on ), and "Emergency Kit" paper bags with red cross on them (to store surgery supplies) 

Procedure:
          ● Place students in pairs or trios.

          ● Give each group an unedited sentence strip.

          ● Provide band aids with punctuation, capitalization 
             markers, and word changers. (small, medium, and 
             large bandages)

          ● Give 3 to 5 minutes for teams to discuss how to do

              surgery and why it needs to be done. Place band-
              aids where they think they are needed.

          ● Practice reading the sentence using prosody  that is

              appropriate for the punctuation.

          ● Have the sentences on the board for teams to share, 
             discuss, and check their sentences.

Sentences should use the independent reading level of the students working on the sentence. A sentence could be addressed by more than one team. Team members could be chosen so that weak students are with stronger (but not too strong) partners. (Use half-list pairing.) The sentences may include sentence fragments that need to be made into a complete sentence (organ transplant!) Later  have them do sentence surgery on their own writing.

The activity uses these powerful strategies:

          ● Discussion/interaction

          ● Manipulatives

          ● Corrective feedback

          ● Student presentation