Potential Tools/Strategies

• Pictography: Combines the direct symbolic representation of drawing with some elements of writing. The left-to-right organization of images can potentially facilitate representing the progression of a narrative. Can support narrative production (as a drafting tool, as a support for telling narratives aloud, etc.) during classroom activities and/or intervention, and can also potentially be used during assessments targeting narrative production. McFadden (1998) not only provided evidence that use of pictography resulted in more temporal organization within narratives and longer narratives overall than did use of drawing or writing during the drafting process, she also provided evidence that pictography may be the most efficient of the three drafting tools.
  • In my clinical practice: Not necessarily a "one-size-fits-all" approach. More likely to utilize pictography as a tool with a student if said student is a visual thinker, and can already conceive of the type of episodic structures (e.g., problem and resolution) involved in narrative.

• Color-Coded Graphic Organizers: Ewoldt & Morgan (2017) suggested the following set of instructions for teaching third through fifth grade students to construct informative or explanatory paragraphs using color coding and graphic organizers. The process can be adapted for writing other kinds of paragraphs as well. For this intervention, students need to be capable of writing and understanding sentences:
  • 1. Teacher provides direct and explicit instruction on the types of sentences that students will encounter in an expository paragraph (topic, detail, explanation, and conclusion).
  • 2. Teacher models how to find the four types of sentences in a paragraph and highlights them. Each type of sentence is coded in one color, and the teacher draws attention to key words (e.g., use of the word "what" signals a detail sentence). Students take part in guided practice with other paragraphs.
  • 3. Teacher introduces a graphic organizer for paragraph planning that makes use of the same color coding system, and provides instruction to students regarding the creation of bubble maps based on color coded paragraphs.
  • 4. Students practice generating own bubble maps.
  • 5. Students draft paragraphs.
    • In my clinical practice: Very straightforward means of teaching construction of different kinds of paragraphs. Students likely need to have good pattern recognition skills, however (e.g., blue sentence always means the same thing, paragraphs constructed from bubble maps always move from the center outwards), otherwise process might be slow and potentially an inefficient use of time. Might require a lot of practice.

• Story grammar: Can be used in explicit instruction regarding the components of narratives (e.g., initiating event, action, consequence). Students can learn to recognize these in the narratives of others, and also receive guidance as to how to incorporate them correctly and/or identify them in their own narratives.
  • Does research support the use of story grammar?: Studies such as Green & Klecan-Aker (2012) provide evidence supporting the use of story grammar instruction for improving the oral narratives of students. These researchers specifically found that after instruction in story grammar, the oral narratives of students with language disabilities contained more T-units and were at more advanced developmental story levels than they had been prior to instruction.
  • In my clinical practice: Story grammar makes a kind of intuitive sense to me: how can a student learn to build better narratives if they do not understand what narratives are? I am likely to use story grammar when instructing students with relatively strong short term and working memory skills (a student will need to recognize what an initiating event is, etc. with relative consistency). Working with story grammar could also potentially provide me with a means of establishing rapport with students, as I could select stories to match their interests.

References

Ewoldt, K.B., & Morgan, J.J. (2017). Color-coded graphic organizers for teaching writing to

students with learning disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 49(3), 175-184.

Green, L.B., & Klecan-Aker, J.S. (2012). Teaching story grammar components to increase oral

narrative ability: A group intervention study. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 28(3),

263-276.

McFadden, T.U. (1998). The immediate effects of pictographic representation on children's

narratives. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 14(1), 51-67.

Ukrainetz, T.A. (1998). Stickwriting stories: A quick and easy narrative representation strategy.

Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 29(4), 197-206.