Writing (both teaching and learning) is one of the most fundamental skills students need to be successful. However, writing is also one of the skills students not only struggle with, but are reluctant to practice.
I totally get it, it's hard to motivate yourself to practice something you are not good at. I felt the same way with using my left (non-dominant) hand in basketball. I had a coach who, instead of having my work on all the different skills that I needed to do to get better with my weaker had, had my focus just the skill of dribbling. To my coach, dribbling with your left hand was the start, if you could not do that not much mattered. If you could not dribble do not bother with shooting with your left because you will not be able to put yourself in a position to score. I did get better with my left hand. Slowly working from dribbling, to left hand layups and floaters and I eventually turned out to be an above average basketball player. I found that focusing on dribbling actually made learning those other skills easier as my stronger left hand could apply these lessons quicker.
So what does this have to do with teaching writing? I mean I am a history teacher, not a writing teacher, right, As a teacher I looked at my struggling writers and thought: What is that one basic skill that we could unlock that would help unleash all the others. To me, it's writing a sentence. If a student can write a sentence, if they can write a paragraph, and if they can write a paragraph they can write an essay. How to I unlock this skill in my classroom: by using TAG.
I am not exactly sure of the origin story of TAG so I cannot cite the person or people who developed it. TAG is an acronym for a quick and easy system we use in my classroom to answer ALL questions in a complete sentence or 2. Students groan when they first hear that I do not accept 1 or 2 word answers, but once they practice TAG, those groans subside. Here is what the acronym stands for
Notice on the slide the question part (Who is?) and the questions marked are both crossed out in red. I have the students physically cross each of these parts on their paper. This is the T in TAG and we are left with the start of our answer - The quarterback of the Buffalo Bill is. Even the students with the least interest in sports know the answer (A) is Josh Allen. We simply put those two together and get our TAG sentence answer above.
Where is the G? This question does not ask students to give details. Typically, we do not start students off with questions that ask for details. Often these are questions tagged with a why, how, or explain at the end. We add these types of questions when students are able to get the T and the A parts down right away.
This question gave us a pretty good sentence starter. Some questions are not so "pretty" and force students to add or take away words, change tenses, etc. Much like with the G, we save those question types until further along in the year. Usually both question styles come up more with content based lessons.
Students then get 3 practice questions to TAG on their own. Each question is about them so the A part should be easy, my focus on these practice questions is to assess if students are accurately using TAG to answer their questions in full sentences and not to force them to think about the answer. We are more focused on how to answer the question.
TAG is a good building block for our writing for the rest of the year. We build on TAG to create claim sentences, cite evidence, and answer short and critical response questions. Some students in years past have even used TAG in their other classes. Over and over again this simple acronym has helped students organize their thoughts on paper in meaningful ways.
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