Graphic organizers for writing in Spanish

My summative assessment for my sixth grade students at the end of first semester is to write three short paragraphs:

1.  Describe yourself
2.  Describe a person of the opposite gender
3.  Describe the similarities between two people

Sixth graders are still learning how to write and organize paragraphs in English. Therefore, it is especially important that we provide them with extra scaffolding to write an organized paragraph in Spanish. I help my students achieve this by modeling:

1. how to fill out a graphic organizer in Spanish
2. how to use the graphic organizer to write a paragraph

Day 1: Modeling the use of graphic organizers

We begin by creating a graphic organizer web together as a whole class. The students call out suggestions, and I type them in on the projector.

Next I share this final draft document with students. Their homework is to upload pictures of the people they want to write about. I assign this as homework to save time! They don’t need to write anything yet.

Day 2: Fill out your graphic organizer

The following day in class, I give students three paper copies of the graphic organizers for writing in Spanish. I have found this is easier than flipping between tabs. These are included in the workbooks I make for my students.

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Students begin filling out their own graphic organizers for the pictures they chose. I check everyone’s work before they begin typing their paragraphs.

When about half the class is done filling out their graphic organizers, I pause the group. We look at the example organizer we filled out the previous day and talk about how to turn that into a paragraph. As a class, we write a paragraph. I encourage students to copy down the paragraph, but I don’t leave it on the screen for them once they begin writing.

For students who need even more support, I will help them color-code like-ideas. This helps them understand how to combine thoughts into compound sentences.  

Students complete all their writing in class to avoid the temptation of Google Translate. However, implementing the graphic organizer and assigning the pictures as homework, has drastically cut down on the amount of class time we need. Once they actually begin writing, it goes much more quickly!