Sample Text

SAMPLE TEXT FROM

THE FIVE FINGER PARAGRAPH©

(from Middle Elementary Teacher Edition)

A few notes to help keep you organized:

· The five most important minutes of instruction are the first five minutes. Gain and Maintain your students’ attention within that first five minutes in order to impart the knowledge.

· The blue section on each page is reserved for comments to teachers, along with some lesson plans. Feel free to use blank “blue” sections for your personal notes.

· A copy of the normal Student’s Book will be in the white section on every page.

· The yellow section is reserved for hints and links to websites for additional help.

· K-1 grades’ activities, as well as those of some older students, are better learned and absorbed in situ (in the original situation, form or place). Take your students outside and ask listing and grouping questions. These trips will not only mean more to the student, but the abstract learning will become more concrete when reinforced in this manner.

· Included in this book are a few days of laying groundwork and reinforcing listing, grouping, and patterning activities (K-1), Lesson Plans for Paragraphs (Grades 1-6), and Lesson Plans for Essays (Grades 2-6).

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Translation of abstract thoughts and ideas into written words can be difficult, even for experienced writers. But if you can make an application more concrete than abstract, students usually understand quicker and retain the information longer. The Five Finger Paragraph is very kinesthetic with use of your own manipulative (your hand) and very subliminal, with the use of the mnemonics (in this case, acronyms) introduced on page 18 (SE).

The human brain moves at the speed of light compared to the speed of chalk, which is almost .5 m.p.h. While you assign a topic and write it down on the board, your students have had 1,257 thoughts, beginning with “Oh, My Gosh, an essay!!!” and “Do I have to be here for this?” and ending with “I can’t do this!!” and “I’d rather be skateboarding right now.” Show your student that he/she needs a method for writing a paragraph by using that method yourself. Put yourself in the student’s place and imagine that you’ve never before written a paragraph.

Second, take out two pieces of paper, one lined and the other with no lines, like the ones in the yellow section at the bottom of this page. Write 5 sentences on them. Anything will do, so long.......

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(from Upper Elementary Student Edition)

Next, come three things we want to say about this topic sentence, followed by its summary sentence. (P2)On the big island of Hawaii there are three active volcanic masses in Volcano State park. (P3)Diamond Head beach on Hawaii is where world surfing championships are held. (P4)Part of Kauai, the oldest island, has the largest number of diverse species of life on Earth. (P5)Hawaii is a very varied place to visit – or live!
Last, but not least, comes the summary paragraph (where we “say what we said”). All sentences in this green paragraph are almost the same as those in the Topic Paragraph in this essay. But this time, the last sentence is summarizing the whole essay, not leading into another paragraph.

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