Warne on Teaching Conventions in a State-Mandated Testing Context

We all face the dilemma of having to "teach to the test," whether the ISAT for you Idahoans, or the WASL for us Washington teachers. As is typical, I had to prepare students to write two-point and three-point responses to a prompt. I hated it as much as my students did. But I digress.

I am encouraged with Warne's directive to use examples from the books that students are actually reading. In my class, for example, I certainly could have used passages from the Twilight series and other popular books. After all, that's where they were, and many of them might even be able to quote whole paragraphs from Eclipse. What a great way to get them to buy into conventions if they can see how their favorite author is doing it.

Sentence combining exercises have their place, and I would follow through with the same strategy: use their books for examples.