Muslim Woman in Amman

I read a few articles and blog entries on giving feedback to students for their writing. One blog entry by One Stop Teacher Shop gave me a few ideas about setting goals for students in this entry . So yesterday me and my students brainstormed a few simple goals they can work on to make their writing improve. We went with handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentences that make sense and capitalization. I then made a little table to place on their desks to keep track of their progress. Every time I see that they have improved on one of their goals they get a star. Below is the progress one of my students has made.  Once they fill out the row they get a literacy enforcer. When they get all stars they get a coupon and we set new goals for them. So far it is working and I hope to get them all on new goals by the end of January.

     I assigned my kids a few passages in Children of the Wild West by Russell Freedman The purpose of the material is to write a comparison paper between their life and life in the Wild West. Kids are making some awesome connections and I am really proud of them.      The problem I have is getting them to move from ideas to construction. my kids weakest point is writing a good paragraph. The amount of times I got "These are interesting facts about ..." or "This paragraph will tell you about..." I am beginning to think my kids have no imagination when it comes to writing. How do I get my kids to come up with good topic sentences?