PoPCast Ep 18 Transcript

Travis: All right. Do we wanna get this party rolling? 

Whitney: Yeah, I think so. I think we're, I think we're ready.  

Travis: Hello listeners and welcome back to Podcast Reboot. This is Travis and Whitney. We're here with you and we are starting our first episode in our new series about planning Patterns of Power lessons. 

Whitney: Ooh, exciting. So, like we had said kind of in our kickoff episode prior to this is that we would take one pattern that we, that a pattern thread, I guess we could call it, that would cover where we would begin with patterns of wonder and then mood, three Patterns of Power into Patterns of Power, six through eight and then into high school.

But we were going to begin with Patterns of Power grades. One through five or two through five. The elementary grades is our starting point. And then we're gonna do six through eight, and then we'll go back and do wonder and then up in high school so we can see how this would flow if we are thinking about this.

This pattern thread. So the pattern that we chose to really think about when it comes to adding details and connecting our ideas is this idea of using coordinating conjunctions. And one way that we can use coordinating conjunctions is in compound sentences. And that's what we're going to focus on in this episode.

I am going to kind of be taking the lead today, but what Travis and I really want to do here is. Model, I guess in a way what it could look like in A PLC planning. So normally we have someone that's the leader for the planning of that [00:02:00] piece which in this case it's a pop lesson. So I would be kind of the leader where I've figured out the pattern that we're focusing on, and I've done some research around it, I've found some text to use and I'm gonna pose it all to the group being Travis today. And Travis is my thought partner on this, and so he's going to be asking some questions and also submitting some of his ideas.

And we're, even though we have kind of a. Skeleton for this lesson, we're gonna really nail it down more through our conversation, so that's what we want to model with you today, and we have video to go along with this. Episode because we are going to be sharing our screen, we have a slideshow template that we can use for both planning as well as it's something we could turn around and use with our students if we want to make it.

More of us and if we wanna turn around and use that with our students once the planning is finished, one thing we'll be using on the side is the planning template. That really poses some questions and we'll make sure to add that PDF to the notes as well, right, Travis? Yes. 

Travis: It'll be in the show notes.

Absolutely. And another thing that we really want to highlight for you within our planning process is the points that we are going to be working through are going to be organized a little bit differently than they would in as far as how we present them in the class. So we're gonna start with some of the chunks of a lesson set that are gonna come a little bit later because that's gonna help us really figure out our focus and some of the backend, where we want students to, to go, to be able to move them through with the appropriate amount of scaffolding, with the appropriate, respectful opportunities to give students. So just something to note as you hear, for [00:04:00] example, if we start with the focus phrase and a discussion around that, that's not where we're gonna start in the classroom.

But for planning, it's really important for us to have clarity around what our focus is before we get started, into the model invitations, things like that. So just a little big point, little planning note. 

Whitney: Awesome. 

Travis: So should we hop in? 

Whitney: Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to share my screen maybe. All right. So like I said Travis and I had discussed a pattern that we could really see potential for both. Pretty much at every grade level, but also it's just very powerful. Not in just constructing sentences, but also in combining sentences.

And if we think about what we do in Patterns of Revision, we do a lot of this work as well as we're thinking about adding details and connecting our ideas. So we just felt like coordinating conjunctions. Was a huge pattern that is very versatile as well, so we could really focus on that. When we think about coordinating conjunctions, we can think about the FANBOYS.

Those, are the most commonly used. Coordinating conjunctions that's for and nor yet. For and nor, but or yet. So that would spell out FANBOYS if we were to do that and tends to be the most common one. That is one that we usually begin with. That's that with. If we were to introduce this at the very beginning, and like I said, it's the most commonly used one.

It's to give extra information. Of course, there's a purpose for each of the different FANBOYS and so in our discussion, one of the things that we want to think about is the author's purpose and craft. Which, why do writers use coordinating conjunctions, and then how do they do that? So anytime we plan for Patterns of Power, we wanna come back [00:06:00] to that pattern and really think about why and how.

So one thing that we can do is we can come up with our own focus phrase, of course, but using what's already out there. Tends to save some time too. So Travis and I like to go back to Patterns of Power of the book, look up a lesson that follows that pattern too, and take a look at the focus phrase and decide, is that the focus phrase we want to use?

Do we wanna tweak that a little bit as we think about why authors use this pattern and how they do that? And so in Patterns of Power, grades one through five lessons. Chapter 18 is all about the compound sentence. And so that's what I really wanna focus on today. So 18.1 uses the conjunction and 18.2 uses conjunction, and 18.3 uses the conjunction.

But if we wanna start with, and that would be a scaffold if we're just introducing this sentence pattern to our students and we would probably just want to start with and, and then move forward from there. Well, the focus phrase in 18.1 and 18.2 is I use a comment in an and to join two sentences so we can decide do we want to use it, do we wanna stick with that or do we want to change that up?

Personally I think it's a great one. 

Travis: I like it as well, especially if we're thinking about just starting out and really thinking about the purpose of that comment in the coordinating conjunction is to connect sentences. I think that sounds really smart. 

Whitney: Yeah. And we could say, combine two sentences, but again, we wanna keep this as simplified for our students and concrete for our students as possible.

And so joining. They can see, oh, I'm gonna bring two sentences together, right? I'm gonna join them together like a compound word. We take two words and we put them together to make a word [00:08:00] that's a compound word. We do the same thing with a compound sentence, and as you can see, there's a visual here that we can really use to help our students think about what that sentence would look like and when thinking if they already know about compound words.

Then we can look at this compound sentence pattern and, visually see that it is the same thing. The only difference is in a compound word, we don't have those connectors in there. But in a compound sentence, in order to connect our ideas, we do need connector words and connector punctuation, such as the comma and the, and to do that.

So this might be a place to start. However, if we have. Students, or if we teach at a grade level where they've already learned about the compound sentence or we're reviewing the compound sentence maybe we don't, maybe we wanna go beyond just, and, and maybe being one of the options, but we really wanna just come back to the fan voice.

And so this is another option that we could take where we still have that visual, but in the middle there instead of just, and we have the fanboy listed and our focus phrase might be, I use a comma and one of the. FANBOYS to join two sentences. So I took that focus phrase and I just tweaked it a little bit to bring in all of our possibilities.

So just thinking about the students in front of us, and as we sit in our PLC meetings, we can be talking about where we want to go with this pattern. 

Travis: Yeah. And just as a reference for you if you have your orange book handy, we're gonna go back into lessons 18.1 and 18.2 throughout our planning time just to see what already exists. Yeah, what great ideas we can already have, that we can lift and use within our planning. So if you want to follow along and access that, you're welcome to pause this, grab your book open up to 18.1 and 2. If you want to take a quick peek at it or follow along as we work through it, both make sense. 

Whitney: Another little thing I want to talk about is in the orange book, in the Patterns of Power, Grades 1-5, [00:10:00] on page 357 and 358, there's a pink tip box on that page that tells the story of the compound sentence. So that's really where this visual comes from.

We, it's actually in Patterns of Power, Jeff Anderson we can credit for making that little pattern visible for us. But it walks through what makes a sentence and then how do we combine two sentences or join them together with one of the FANBOYS to make a compound sentence. If you're new to compound sentences or just new to grammar in general, or you don't know as much about grammar as you would like to, those tip boxes are really helpful. And so I love that little story. It's just a little narrative of two sentences that join again to become a compound sentence.

So it's a great little extra for you and I highly recommend that you read that to have an understanding of that. 

Travis: Whitney really smart and a great refresher to the idea of, hey, what if students aren't quite here yet? How can we help simplify the explanation of what makes a sentence to be able to combine two a great refresher for us?

Whitney: Yeah. It's a great story to share with our students. And so the other thing that we could do also when we're thinking about planning out this lesson is instead of starting with a compound sentence. I could take a compound sentence and break it down into two separate sentences, remove the comma, remove the, AND, and just make those into two separate sentences and sentences and chat with the students: "What do you notice about these two sentences?" And yeah, they really are sentences. 

Then share with them the combined sentence. That's always an option. And that's actually how we start with 18.1: we start with the two separate sentences first as an invitation to notice on day one to review what makes up a sentence, and then invitation day to notice day two would be the compound sentence; always an option. I don't always do that. So like in [00:12:00] 18.1, I don't always do that invitation to notice day one. Sometimes I, most of the time I just go straight into day two. But just know there's always those options. Just as we think about scaffolding for our students.

So the next part of the planning process, so we choose our pattern, we figure out the focus phrase, we have conversations around authors, purpose and craft. Why do authors, so we're, I'm gonna go back for a minute to just using and as we think about this, oops. Why do authors use the conjunction. And why do authors write compound sentences? It's to connect to ideas, right? That's the whole purpose of combining sentences, is to connect our ideas to make our writing less choppy. So how do they do that? Well, one way. To connect those ideas is to use a compound sentence, to use a comma in one of the FANBOYS to connect those ideas for the reader. That's the thinking behind the author's purpose and craft that we do here. 

The next piece of the planning is to choose a mentor sentence, of course. We're choosing a new one for the purpose of this, as opposed to what's in Patterns of Power. So one of the books that I am just really into right now for elementary is JD and The Great Barber Battle by J. Dillard. It's really one of my favorites. I, it's such a fun story. The characters in it are great. There's some humor, some comedy. It's about a third grade student, students see themselves a lot in this book as they think about what they could do. JD is the main character in this book, and it's told from his point of view also that I love, it's in first person point of view.

So anyway, in this book, JD is an artist and he finds out that he's really good at cutting hair and he's [00:14:00] able to put designs into his friend's hair with his clippers and everything. So what happens is. Everyone in town in this little tiny town in Mississippi starts discovering that he does better and also for free making the designs and everything than the local barber. He starts to take business away from the local barber as he is cutting out of his house, so the barber tells him he needs to stop. 

What I did here is for this part of the book, where I'm going to pull the mentor sentence. The first thing I did was just set context so you know what part of the story this takes place in. In this part of the book, the local barber named Henry has accepted JD's challenge. JD has challenged him to a haircutting competition to be held in the middle of this town, Meridian in Mississippi. And so now at this part of the book, JD has to make a plan for this battle, and he shares his plan. He's sharing his plan with his family at dinner. 

Okay. So that's just the context. It's just giving you a little bit of what's happening in the book. It's a part that you could also read to your students about what's going on if you haven't made this a read aloud in your classroom. And then the excerpt, this is probably the part that I would read aloud to provide context for the students prior to looking at a mentor sentence, and that says, 

"I told them the rest of the rules I had thought of. I wanted to pull hairstyles out of a hat and have a best of three rounds with 30 minutes for each style. Mom said she was really impressed by my plan. Vanessa cleared her throat loudly and Justin clapped. Granddad was busy eating, but I could tell he was proud too." 

So as you can see, that's just this, a part of the book that I may choose to read aloud to the students to again, continue to provide context. It's also for planning purposes, something that we could look at the mentor [00:16:00] sentence within the context of what's happening in the book. So when looking at this excerpt, the sentence of course that I want to take a look at is "Vanessa cleared her throat loudly and Justin clapped." That's a great compound sentence that uses the comma AND, but what I really loved about this piece too, look at the very next sentence: "Grandad was busy eating, but I could tell he was proud too." There's another compound sentence that uses BUT, so I could turn around and really use both of these sentences in my lesson if I wanted, as an option as we explore the compound sentence. So we have chosen our pattern. We've talked about the author's purpose and craft of that, designed our focus phrase, chose our mentor sentence and the text that we're going to pull that from. 

Now it's time to think through what the lesson will look like. That's the planning piece. Now we're gonna plug it into the lesson process. When we start with our students, of course we're gonna start here with the model sentence. We're not gonna start with a focus phrase; that's going to come through the conversations of this invitation to notice. 

So this is the sentence that I've chosen Travis: "Vanessa cleared her throat loudly, and Justin clapped." The reason why I chose this sentence just as a starting point for students is that we have two very clear subjects. There are two different subjects; there are two people. So we can visualize the characters and what they're doing. We have action there as well. When I'm thinking of visualizing that just as a scaffold, like in second or third grade, I think this is very clear and we could even act those two separate sentences out to really show we have two separate ideas.

Travis: Yeah, I really like that. And as I'm thinking about choosing sentences as a co-planner, something that is often on my mind is, what is this gonna look like when students imitate it? I already love [00:18:00] that this I. Has some clarity around imitation possibilities. If we're even just thinking about capturing students in the classroom as a real easy connection point.

I'm already in my mind. Okay. This is gonna cross over into imitation really nicely, but I'm with you. I really like the imagery that this highlights. I can see what Vanessa's doing and what Justin is doing. I can visualize them in my mind already, so, awesome. Nice. Love it. 

Whitney: So the focus phrase for that, then "I use a comma and AND to join two sentences." That works really well with this sentence. Like I said, it's very clear when thinking to imitate students, that is something we always want to keep in mind is the sentence that we choose. How will our students imitate that?

And that comes into our planning and we're gonna talk about that more when we get there. But I, it's something I'm always. Really thinking about it, if I were to guide my students through an imitation, how might I do that with this piece? 

Sometimes we choose a sentence that 's like, Ooh, this is really hard to imitate. At that point, we might choose to use a different sentence or we might really plan out with maybe some prompts on how they would imitate. And I think that's probably gonna come up in the junior high lesson if I remember right when we talked about that. Right, Travis? Yes. 

Travis: It absolutely will. I think as, yeah, as we're building complexity, we wanna make sure that students still walk away confidently, feeling like, oh, we can do this. So that's yeah, I think that's where we pick up a little bit of the load on our end in the planning space, but this looks great right now. 

Whitney: Okay, great. And, back to thinking about that lesson 18.1, if we needed a more clear scaffold than even this, we could have "Vanessa cleared her throat loudly," period, "Justin clapped," period, and we have a first conversation of, what do you notice?

We have two sentences. How do you know we have two sentences? And we could have [00:20:00] those conversations before we even show them the compound sentence. That just reminded me that's a really good conversation to have about students because that second sentence, Justin clapped, is a two word sentence, and some younger students don't think that's a sentence because it only has two words, and somewhere along the way they may have learned that they have to have at least five words in their sentence to make it a sentence. I've heard, literally, I've heard those words come out of kids' mouths before. Yeah. So I think having conversations about two word sentences, the power of using them intentionally is always a really good conversation to have. I. Okay. 

Travis: What a great build-in. What we're already thinking. We're gonna get outta the invitation to notice. I think that's really nice for us to be thinking about and where we might want to go with that. So that I think really affirms what is in the book on page 357 and 358, around what makes a sentence. Mm-hmm. To be able to come back to that when kids are, if they're, if we're thinking they might ask about it.

Whitney: Yeah. Awesome. So then once we have our sentence chosen, then we move into the compare/contrast. So it theplanning piece, it can go really quickly now. So we have our "Vanessa cleared her throat loudly and Justin clapped." Here's our compound sentence. And then I put up two possibilities here.

Okay. One compare/contrast sentence that I chose, I made up. And I, I really basically imitated the mentor sentence with that. So I just thought it'd be fun to use me and Travis. If I were making it up for my classroom, I might use two students' names. Here. It's maybe something that happened recently.

That's the neat thing about the compare/contrast is it's something that you're either finding or making, and it's okay to tell your students. Here's a sentence I wrote. Compare my choices to that of our mentor author. And you can even say that with an actual Patterns of Power lesson, that compare/contrast sentence: just tell everyone you wrote it. [00:22:00] It's nice because if you're thinking about the gradual release of responsibility you have the I Do, which is our mentor author, but then there's another I do, which is the teacher, right? And then we imitate together. It's always nice to create your own and let your students know that you made one.

So that's what I did. I am, I have the worst voice in the world, so Travis would totally laugh with me, not at me if I were to sing karaoke, because I definitely would do it horribly, and I know that he would laugh about that. So I just had some fun writing this sentence, "Whitney sang karaoke horribly, and Travis laughed." I literally just imitated that sentence. I had my subject, what my subject did, how my subject did that. That's the first part. And then the second is a two word sentence. What did another subject do? And really thinking like. Reaction or just another action that's happening. The other possibility is taking that second sentence from that paragraph of JD and the Great Barber Battle about granddad and I, right.

Granddad was busy eating. But I could tell he was proud too. This is that idea if I want to go past the conjunction AND, and I want us to just really compare compound sentences in general as opposed to just using the conjunction AND. So again, this is something that you wanna think about with your students.

Where are you with your students with this pattern? Is this something that they're seeing for the very first time? Is this something they've seen in the past? How can I build a little bit of complexity within that? So we have two options here. Of course. We could also go back and look at lesson 18.1, lesson 18.2, even less than 18.3 if I wanted, and look at the compare/contrast sentences there to see if I would want to pull any of those.

Now, when I looked at them, I was like, yeah, I don't really think; I think it'd be [00:24:00] better in, in this case for me to just make one up and then use the other one. But that's always an option. Travis, what are your thoughts here? 

Travis: Looking at the two options, "I was a curious child, comma, and my eyes studied everything," or we have, "Her voice was high, comma, and her words jumped around like grasshoppers."

So yeah, I could see, if I'm using either one of these two models to borrow, to lift and use, it might change the focus a little bit from, we have two characters or two people that we're highlighting in this, in this model, if we're gonna bring it over to focusing on just one person. I could see some benefit in that in the, in imitation to give students choice, but I'm with you that I really like either we're going to elevate some clarity around this specific pattern that we're studying, or we're gonna challenge students to really strengthen their understanding of possible connection points that we could have. I really like these two options, but I'm with you to see Yeah. What's over here?

Whitney: And I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit just as I'm thinking about the planning of this. Later down the road, when I start, when we talk about apply, one of the things that we can do in the invitation to apply is collect other compound sentences that we find. Yes. So these sentences in 18.1 and 18.2, even 18.3 could be possibilities to get our list started of collections, right? 

Oh as, maybe I'm modeling in my book Wonder by RJ Palacio, look at this compound sentence I found and write that. So we have some that we've already quote “found” to get that started. And that would then lead into a heavier conversation around compound sentences. So there's always that option too. I just. I thought of that Travis, as you were 

Travis: talking. That's great. And even to extend it, I'm, [00:26:00] you got me, my creative juice is flowing too as well. If I'm thinking about some of these two books that we're looking at, if I want to do a read aloud, if I want to do a first chapter Friday read of just a chunk of a text and maybe use it for a different purpose. This is great, now I know, okay, if I'm going to use it. Jen Bryant's book Six Dots, the Story of Louis Braille, which is the example that we use in 18.1, now I have a built-in read aloud that I have an extra added instructional piece. Hey, this is gonna be our entry point into collecting what we read out in the wild, that we can then push into students' reading time with a specific focus.

I think that's a great idea. Yeah. 

Whitney: I'm not gonna use both of these during the compare/contrast. I am going to choose just one. So I just wanna make sure to clarify that. As a team, we would choose one or the other to use for the compare/contrast. So either Whitney or the granddad. 

Travis: Yeah. And also I think something that maybe we, forgot to mention or just something that I wanted to mention if we are gonna use the granddad was busy eating, comma but, I'm gonna wanna make sure that every time after during planning, anything that I add to the mix, I want to go back to my focus phrase and just check it against that. Does this focus phrase still work or do I need to update? Or revise it. So in this case I use a comma and one of the FANBOYS to join two sentences. That is a great way, if we're gonna use that second example; so we have comma AND and comma BUT, those are two examples in this broader what makes compound sentence examples. I love that.

Whitney:  Absolutely. Mm-hmm. That's a great, great callback to that. So yeah, after we get to that compare/contrast, that's when we decide, okay, which of the focus phrases.

Is going to be better for us to use. And this focus phrase here, I use a comment, one of the fanboy, if I'm gonna use the but sentence, then af during the invitation to notice I'm gonna use this, focus phrase, even though we're just using, [00:28:00] and during the invitation to notice, it's still gonna be this focus phrase because our compare/contrast is going to have.

The BUT in it, and then we can all giggle 'cause we said but. 

Travis: We're going to pause our planning episode right here. Listeners, we've covered so much valuable information already and we think this is a good place to take a breather. Planning effective grammar instruction requires careful thought, and we want to give you time to process everything we've shared so far before we continue with the implementation details, and sometimes the best learning happens when we have space to reflect on new ideas.

So, that wraps up part one of our episode on planning Patterns of Power lessons for elementary grades. We've covered a lot of ground today. Whitney and I walked you through the initial planning process for teaching compound sentences using coordinating conjunctions, specifically focusing on how to join two sentences with a comma and an AND. 

We explore different focus phrases you might use depending on your student's needs. Like I use a comma and an and to join two sentences or expand to include all of the FANBOYS. We also selected a mentor text from JD and the great barber battle. By J. Dillard, which by the way is a fantastic book that students really connect with, and we looked at different compare/contrast sentence options that would help students understand the pattern more effectively.

As you reflect on this episode, think about your own students. Where are they in their understanding of compound sentences? Would they benefit from focusing just on and as a scaffold, or are they ready for more options for connecting sentences together? Can they handle interacting with more of the coordinating conjunctions: more of the FANBOYS? [00:30:00] 

Also, consider what mentor texts you might already have in your classroom that contain great examples of compound sentences. Remember that making these connections to texts your students are already reading makes the grammar instruction so much more relevant and meaningful. In part two, we'll dive into the actual implementation of this lesson, the invitation to Imitate, invitation to apply, and those all important editing conversations.

See you in part two.