Lesson Plan: Peer Group Sentence Surgery
Anthropology
Objective
Students help each other improve their sentence style. Actual sentences volunteered or selected from students' writing will be shared and worked on as a class. (What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?)
Estimated Time
45-60 minutes (flexible)
Work Completed Before Class
Students will have completed one or more writing assignments. Sentences from a previous assignment will be selected by the TA from each student's writing to be used for this exercise (though during the exercise itself students will be asked to volunteer their sentences for the group surgery). (The TA can also select funny examples of ridiculous sentences from other classes for comedic and cathartic value.)
In Class
- Briefly outline the exercise to the class. Encourage an environment of group solidarity: we all have written sentences in our careers as writers that even our mothers couldn't be proud of. The goal of today's exercise is to share some of our worst sentences, to laugh together as a group and then to get busy making them better.
- Go over some common sentence sicknesses you have observed in your students' writing (can include things like grammatical or punctuation problems, vagueness, wordiness, pretentiousness, awkward or unclear phrasing, ambiguous pronoun usage, poor word choice or diction issues, passive voice, run-on sentences, etc.). (5 minutes)
- Present a few examples of terrible sentences from published (possibly famous) academics to the class. (Good examples can often be found from the likes of Bourdieu and Butler). These sentences are good to laugh at, and help students realize that even famous academics write bad sentences! Ask students to volunteer to read the sentences out loud to the class, and discuss with the students what makes these sentences bad. (5 minutes)
- Pass out a handout you have prepared before class with a sentence from each one of your students (without names). Each (numbered) sentence should have something about it that could be improved — the problems can be obvious (and taken from the list above) or not so obvious. Stress to students that everyone has a sentence on the sheet, and that some sentences are quite good, but even they can be improved through some revision.
- Break the students up into small groups and assign each group a certain number of sentences. Ask them to try to identify why you selected the sentence (i.e., how it could be improved) and ask them to make edits. (10 minutes)
- Reassemble as a class and ask each group to present two or three sentences, including the original and corrected version. You can prepare a PowerPoint in advance with all the questions, which you can then edit according to the students' suggestions. You can discuss the original sentence and the corrections with the students as you go along. (25-40 minutes depending on how many sentences/groups you want to correct/discuss)
Casey Miller
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