MindWing Concepts Blog

ThemeMaker, Mindwing’s expository companion to Story Grammar Marker, helps children break down and produce the more challenging expository text that becomes central to learning as they advance through the grades! I have found that children are more open to working with expository text once they learn that the familiar SGM icons can help them along the way! While each ThemeMaker Expository Text Map (e.g. List, Sequence, Description, Compare-Contrast) is helpful on its own, kids need to be moved toward understanding that ALL of these structures are contained in curriculum discourse and text!

That can seem like an overwhelming task, but it becomes manageable and fun using a recently developed and FREE online tool, GlogsterEDU, a site that tells all students to “poster yourself!” What is a poster, really, but a display of information that utilizes these key expository structures? Using GlogsterEDU, you can choose and research any topic with your students using ThemeMaker maps and icons, then create a “Glog” with pictures, images and graphics, text (structures!) links, and even recorded audio and video if you wish! How to do all this? Well shoot on over to SpeechTechie, where we are wrapping up Glogster Week, a week of posts featuring examples of how to use Glogs in Speech-Language and other interventions, as well as how-to screencasts showing each step of how to use this (again, FREE) resource. If you’re catching up later, you can just click over to see all the posts regarding Glogster.

How do the ThemeMaker icons work with text structures? Well as I mentioned, they can be used to explore any topic, so I thought I’d present you an array of structures that explore GlogsterEDU itself!

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

And for a specific example, please check out this Glog I created with a student. D. was studying continents, so we used ThemeMaker Maps to research and break down information about Earth’s land masses, then had a blast creating this Glog (be sure to roll over the Glog to find our links)!

I hope you will consider GlogsterEDU a fun and helpful context to use Mindwing’s tools!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Click Here to View Expository Text Structures and Glogster

Click Here to View Glogster

I am going to open this post with a language sample obtained from a fifth grade student in 2006, an attempt to retell an episode of the series Full House.

And um something that happened was when this girl named Michelle and this guy Jesse, it was Michelle’s birthday. And Jesse and Michelle got stuck in a gas station and she missed her party.
And um they were there all day, but then finally it opened the next- no it opened a lot later. So um they went back to the house and they had their party and she got an elephant and she got to ride it and all her friends and she got, she felt better. And that’s it.

I collected and analyzed many samples like this over my years in the school setting, narratives that clearly attended to character, setting and “Kick-Off,” but lack cohesion, complexity and maturity due to their reliance on a simple action sequence structure. Do you have a lot of students like this?

I really began to understand how to help students with this type of narrative (who comprised a good chunk of my caseload, and still) when I first worked through Mindwing’s A Day in the Park Student Activity Booklet (and its accompanying lesson plans in the Talk to Write, Write to Learn manual). Many students sort of get stuck at the action sequence level, and don’t generalize the structures needed for a reaction sequence (character, setting, Kick-Off and reaction to the kickoff) or more advanced episodes that detail character responses, feelings and plans, along with complex sentences that link these story elements. A Day in the Park helped me see how I could break down these levels of formulation for students, and as a result I was able to identify other activities that could provide additional practice and skill-building.

One of my favorite recent discoveries is the Zimmer Twins website (based on the Qubo animated series), which allows you to make animated stories from pre-created starters or from scratch! The starters are naturally complex in structure and work really well with Mindwing’s Story Maps as you help students complete the story on a higher level of narrative organization. I found the site to be a great context to focus on moving students from an action to a reaction sequence; here’s one reaction sequence movie I created with a group. Before you get nervous, I can tell you that the Zimmer Twins site is really simple to use!

First, you can view the story starters and pick one that will work for your students.

After clicking “Make Movie From [your chosen title],” you can simply click, drag and modify the rest of your story.

By clicking on the elements in the sentence, you can change character, setting, and other features of the clip. Word and thought balloons can be modified- just click and type. The tabs allow you to add different elements such as actions, reactions and feelings!

Click here to see another way I finished the starter “Surprise!” I hope you enjoy Zimmer Twins, I know the kids I work with really did. Here’s a great tutorial on using the site if you’d like more information before diving in. Be sure to create a free account when you start using the site.

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts – which is right around the corner from MindWing’s office. The Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden is located at the Springfield Museums near our office as well. The influence of Ted’s (Dr. Seuss’) memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work.

Photo courtesy of http://www.holyokeinphotos.com/

In keeping with the spirit of the holiday season, we wanted to share a lesson idea from MindWing’s book: East Meets West for the Holidays by Maryellen Rooney Moreau and Judy K. Montgomery. This lesson is based on one of Dr. Suess’ most beloved holiday stories: How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Below is the view of the neighboring town of Easthampton, MA from the top of Mt. Tom. Perhaps this is the view that inspired Dr. Seuss to write this entertaining, heart-warming tale that has become a holiday tradition and been made into a cartoon, a musical and a movie. It has been thought that “Who-ville” is actually Easthampton and that the Mt. Crumpit, the mountain upon which The Grinch resides, is actually Mt.Tom! Maryellen Rooney Moreau lives in Easthampton and travels over Mt. Tom every day to work.

So, IS Maryellen actually “Maryellen Who?"

Click Here to access this rich lesson on How the Grinch Stole Christmas that filled with narrative development, story sparkle, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, expository text, rare words, cultural aspects. Also, when you watch the movie, you can use the Perspective-Taking Maps from the Story Grammar Marker® Manual to Map and talk about the different perspectives of the Grinch and the Whos.

In the middle of the Grinch’s attempts to carry out his plan to “steal Christmas,” Cindy-Lou Who catches him stealing her Christmas tree. The Grinch has to “trick” Cindy-Lou in order to continue to carry out his plan. The motivations and intentions of the Grinch in this situation may be difficult for children with Social Learning Challenges to comprehend and express. Our new Autism Collection contains a new Critical Thinking Triangle™ Map that can help to elaborate and discuss the Grinch’s plan for trickery as well as Cindy-Lou’s perspective of the situation.

Click thumbnails to Enlarge Images

We also found this website http://www.seussville.com/grinch/activities.html that has some fun activities with The Grinch theme.

We wish you the happiest of holidays and all the best in the new year!

MindWing’s Episode Organizer Poster – Explicit & Systematic

This is a MindWing Concepts Map of the components of a story taking into consideration “story grammar”. It is called “The SGM® Episode Organizer". The story grammar components, making up the beginning/middle/end of a story are shown as icons. The Character, Setting, Kick-off (problem or excitement), Feeling and Plan are in the beginning. The actions (attempts) to carry out the plan make up the middle and the Consequence and resolution make up the end.

 

Click  image to enlarge

Make the contrast between the traditional Beginning/Middle/End map and this one evident to the participants.

You may want to tell the participants that such an iconic map (and the three dimensional tool) are called “non-linguistic representations” of language.

Marzano in his classic text entitled Classroom Instruction that Works, notes that non-linguistic representations (along with compare/contrast, setting of objectives and provision of feedback), raise achievement when intentionally taught and used consistently.

 

As you visit our blog, please feel free to “SHARE” this information with your friends and colleagues by clicking on the links below. Within this blog we hope to infuse your knowledge and use of MindWing’s methodology with new lesson ideas, new research findings and new products! Maryellen Rooney Moreau, M.Ed. CCC-SLP will be blogging about her current thoughts and research about oral language, comprehension, writing, critical thinking, narrative & expository text. Sean J. Sweeney, M.S, M.Ed, CCC-SLP (a longtime friend & colleague, but new to MindWing’s team) will be blogging about technology integration with MindWing’s methodology. Sean, an SLP, also has a degree in Instructional Technology and has hundreds of fantastic technology-based ideas using Story Grammar Marker®, Braidy the StoryBraid®, Talk to Write, Write to Learn™ and ThemeMaker™. We are looking forward to his exciting lessons! I (Sheila Moreau) will be blogging about new products, new product uses, success stories, and Professional Development information & locations and tidbits about our travels throughout the country as we bring MindWing’s message to more and more educators and parents. Enjoy!