Writers Work Toward Ba-Da-Bing Sentences

 

Since I have been traveling again, it had been awhile since I visited this fourth grade classroom.  After being gone, it is amazing to see how much the students had grown as writers.  Today they were working on various genres and adding sentences that Barry Lane calls: ba-da-bing sentences.

Here's how it went.
The teacher talked to them about writing three parts to a sentence: Where feet travel; What eyes see; and What the mind thinks. By doing those three things, the sentence becomes longer and gives the reader more details.

Look at this sample:
Where your feet went:
"I tiptoed across the freshly waxed tile floor."
What you saw:
"half of the players were bear-hugging the volleyball, as they returned to the rack"
What you thought:
"Mrs. Gilbert is a master teacher, coach and organizer"
The new sentence:
"As I tiptoed on freshly waxed tile, I saw children bear-hugging their volleyballs and thought, Mrs. G. is amazing!"

The students were instructed to try this in their work today. 

After writing/conferencing time was over, several children shared their work.  Here is a sample of one girl's ba-da-bing sentence: