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# Lesson 4: Ideas for Targeted Teaching

In [Lesson 3](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TSNPzY9ZDs9RRvqVy6dycHppuY2FioL4iXtWVkTBID4/edit?usp=sharing), you assigned a Scribo Activity to students and saw briefly what you might do once the texts were analysed by Scribo. This fourth lesson brings together a few ideas in the Scribo PD about what you could do as initial targeted teaching activities. You will explore “5 Minute Fix-its” as well as more detailed approaches.

**Background:** Here’s a scenario common to just about every teacher who gives feedback on students’ extended responses (whether they are called texts, essays, reports or something else).

You sit down to read through a stack of student texts and provide feedback. As you begin evaluating them individually, it’s not long before you start seeing common traits appear regularly across many students’ papers. So that you can go back to class the next day and do some targeted teaching, you might start a fresh notes page where you keep track of the recurring issues. These could be as simple as, “they really don’t understand semicolons; I can teach them that,” or, “students still don’t seem to understand the main parts of an introductory paragraph and how they work; we should practice its elements and transitions.” These observations run across almost every writing skill used by both beginning and advanced writers and what you focus on depends on students’ abilities and your expectations. This extra page is SO VALUABLE because this is how you engage in focused targeted teaching to improve students’ writing. This extra page of teacher notes, is EXACTLY what you get from Scribo when a class set of texts is analysed. But because you use Scribo, ***you get the “Extra Page” without reading a single text!*** Let’s see how this is possible.

**Remember there’s online Help**

**Note:** look for the Help icon in each section of the Teacher Resources page. This will provide details about the section. What follows are ideas focused on possible teaching strategies, not the software.

### The Big Picture: Hitting Targets

Nothing is magical about when students write to a suggested word count, number of paragraphs or use keywords on the topic. Except when they don’t hit these basic targets. You don’t want to begin marking papers if students haven’t at least hit the basics. Finding out details on this is very easy.

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8WTnCl_OB0nike%2F1.png?generation=1580355675605894\&alt=media)

Once a class set of texts is loaded into Scribo and you click on the “Report” pie chart icon in the right panel, you are greeted by the “extra page” of analytics on the class report.

At the top of this page, you see some basic metrics related to paragraph and word counts. Just below this is the section on the Topic that displays the prompt and keywords you gave to the activity in the Setup screen. [The video below](https://vimeo.com/298500437/5a1cc82ee5) describes how you can use these basic insights to decide whether students have sufficiently completed the activity or whether there might be a little more work to do on these aspects before you put the effort into grading / giving feedback:

* Paragraphing (Basic structure)
* Text length (Word count / fluency)
* Addressing the Topic (use and prevalence of keywords)

{% embed url="<https://vimeo.com/298500437/5a1cc82ee5>" %}

C[lick here or above to Watch the Video](https://vimeo.com/298500437/5a1cc82ee5)

### The Five Minute Fix-its

Sometimes a brief activity inspired by real examples from students in the class can be a great way to address and improve common skill gaps and misunderstandings. Rather than build a whole activity around them (which you could do), you might consider using these as "sponge activities" for the start of a class, transition between activities or to "soak up time" when you have to take care of administrative tasks.

You could use just about any of the examples, word clouds or analytics Scribo provides on this page, but in [the video below](https://vimeo.com/269134191/f673bbf06e), we share approaches for reviewing –

* Academic words (used in context)
* Sentence quality
* Grammar and punctuation

{% embed url="<https://vimeo.com/298500437/5a1cc82ee5>" %}

### **Academic Words in Context**

Use the pop-up samples that show how academic words are used in the context of their sentences. Look through those that you think are challenging (or all of them), and have students "vote" on whether the use and sentence its in are 100% correct. Make this a quick-paced and fun learning lesson.

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8Z-gufkM-fDHi4%2F4.png?generation=1580355675554489\&alt=media)

### **Sentences**

Copy a sentence from the carousel and paste it into a shared doc or the Interactive Whiteboard and let individuals or the whole class "Fix it."

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8_cHknlR9-rnsU%2F5.gif?generation=1580355675574242\&alt=media)

### **Grammar or Word Choice**

Use the Grammar carousel at the bottom of the page. Choose an area that you think will help the most students. Consider having one student "play teacher" and explain how to fix what Scribo has found (or if it's fine as it is!).

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8aYywG42bH9UYu%2F6.png?generation=1580355675536439\&alt=media)

### Targeting Improvement: Vocabulary and Use of Cohesives

Whether you teach primary students or those in the senior years, writers can always build their vocabulary. The goal here is not to memorise new words, but to have more choices in one’s working vocabulary to select the best words for the situation.

Here are two examples of how Scribo can help you:

### **Word Clouds by Part of Speech**

Scribo quickly sifts through all the words in a whole class of texts and sorts them in three levels: Common, Intermediate and Advanced. Common and Intermediate account for the first one thousand and two thousand words that we use 80% of the time. Advanced words are all others. A teacher might, for example, want to help students use more active verbs or more specific nouns. Here’s a short screen animation that shows how you can use Scribo’s Word Clouds to explore the most frequently used common nouns and verbs and the more advanced options.

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8bp0WuYr3R8Mth%2F7.gif?generation=1580355675846268\&alt=media)

### **Cohesives as Signals for Thinking (Ideas)**

Scribo sorts cohesives into two categories that we call Common and Advanced. While Common cohesives are the connective glue of phrases and structural transitions, Advanced cohesives are more interesting. These words and phrases are more related to the students' ideas and include words that clarify, infer, explain, compare and suggest – such as "clearly," "is due to," "similarly," and "seemingly."

Use the table of Advanced cohesives to explore the actual words students in the cohort have used. You can click on the words to see other choices that may be possible. Not every suggestion will make sense as a "replacement", but seeing other options can be useful.

Also click on the Cohesive Explorer and surf through the "Ideas" categories. Students can do this from their own log-ins (and the Writing Check) so spending time with this tool can be fruitful in extending the students' use of cohesives that lead them deeper into analysis, interpretation and argumentation.

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8ckQ1a6MIJAhNp%2F8.gif?generation=1580355675743083\&alt=media)

### Working with Sample Paragraphs to Improve Writing

One of the best parts of reading through a class set of texts is finding a few exemplars you can use to illustrate specifics of writing. For example, a solid introductory paragraph or well-argued body paragraph. In narratives, it might be an engaging opening or clever use of voice. What if you could find these exemplars without having to read through all those papers? Of course, with Scribo you can! As soon as the class report is generated, Scribo finds and presents a range of samples from student texts. All you have to do is cast your eye over them and select one (or more) for your teachable moment! Let's see how this can be done with paragraphs.

Note: When sharing the infographics screen with students, we suggest using the "Hide Students" button at the top right:

![](https://770445871-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2Fscribo%2F-LzoXDiGv2vbzNxob9zT%2F-LzoXT8dJ2kiH5c5gqbr%2F9.png?generation=1580355675540901\&alt=media)

Watch [this short video](https://vimeo.com/269125642/3974d5b916) describing how you can use students’ actual paragraphs as anonymous work samples in a targeted activity to improve writing.

{% embed url="<https://vimeo.com/269125642/3974d5b916>" %}