Cut and paste paragraphs: Editing paragraphs on the computer

Students use the cut and paste commands of any word processing program to rearrange sentences in three different paragraphs, according to chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance.

A lesson plan for grades 6–8 Computer/Technology Skills and English Language Arts

By Sally Watts

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Learning outcomes

Students will demonstrate recognition of logical progression of ideas in writing through recognition of correct chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance in writing samples.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

2 hours

Materials/resources

Students will need their notes on Writing Paragraphs.

Technology resources

This lesson is designed to be conducted in a computer lab setting where each student works from a disk at a personal computer. It could be adapted for use in the classroom with a single computer connected to a presentation system.

Pre-activities

Prior to beginning the lesson, students should have had instruction in expository writing. They should be familiar with the following terms: unity, coherence, chronological order, spatial order, order of importance, transition words, and topic sentence.

The instructor should have copied the directions for the lessons as well as the three paragraphs onto student disks.

Activities

1. Review with students terminology they should know to complete the lesson.
2. Go over the CUT, PASTE, and SAVE AS commands for the computer.
3. Each student receives a computer disk with the lessons copied onto it and is instructed to bring it with the notes on paragraphs to the lab.
4. Students begin to work from their disks, following the directions in each lesson (a total of three) on the disk. See attachments #2, #3, #4 for models of the lessons.
5. Lesson 1: Chronological Order Students use cut and paste commands to rearrange a paragraph according to chronological order, the order in which things happen. The instructor should help students find transition words as they work to aid them in deciding how the paragraph should be correcty arranged.
6. Lesson 2: Spatial Order Students use cut and paste commands to rearrange a paragraph according to spatial order, the order of where things are. Again, the instructor should help students find transition words to guide their decision-making.
7. Lesson 3: Order of Importance Students use cut and paste commands to rearrange a paragraph according to order of importance. The instructor should point out transition words to students as they work.
8. With each lesson, students should save their changes under SAVE AS so as not to alter the original assignment. Or lessons may be printed if the instructor has access to a printer and prefers not to look at the work on disk.
9. In class, the instructor should go over the correct arrangement of each paragraph, discussing why each is correct and referring to key transition words.

Assessment

The lesson itself is designed to be an assessment tool, assessing whether students are able to recognize logical progression in writing. I use the lesson as a graded assignment in which I base my grade on the total number of sentences (23). I take 4 points off for each misplaced sentence. The number of points correct counts as a quiz grade.

Supplemental information

The notes on paragraphs (attachment #1) are adapted from the McDougal Littell text “Literature and Language” gold level, published by McDougal, Littell, & Company, 1994, pages 639 - 643.

The paragraphs used in the lessons (attachments #2, #3, #4) come from the Prentice Hall Literature Writing Studio “Transparencies for Writing” copper level, published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, pages 147, 151, 155.

Comments

This lesson could be modified for use for any middle/secondary grade level. Depending on the information in the paragraphs chosen for the lesson, other subject areas can be addressed. Thus, the lesson provides a good opportunity for integrated teaching.

I use this lesson after students have worked arranging paragraphs in a paper. See my lesson on LEARN NC “Puzzled Papers.” Students begin work on recognizing logical organization of writing by rearranging the paragraphs in a 5-paragraph paper. Then they move on to this lesson where they rearrange individual sentences in paragraphs.