please critique my 6th grader's informative writing..

[housemouse]

This is what ds wrote for the informative essay assignment. It needs a closing paragraph (conclusion), a much better introduction both of which are not ds strong points. In any case, please comment on the writing. How it can be improved? Would this be ok for 6th grade level and if not, what can we do better next time.  Thank you.

 

Oysters

 

The oyster is a mollusk which is an animal with a two piece shell. They are invertebrates which means they do not have a backbone. The oyster has a mouth, digestive system, heart and shell. They can grow to 60mm by 50mm. The shell color is gray.

 

There are 2 kinds of oysters that live in the ocean: pearl oysters and true oysters. The true oysters live in colonies in shallow water and pearl oyster lives in the deep water and can attach itself to the bottom of the ocean. Pearl oysters are called that because they can make pearls. A pearl is made when a grain of sand gets into the oyster which irritates it and oyster puts out a liquid of protein and calcium that hardens around the grain of sand. If it has enough years it can turn into a pearl. Some people take the pearls out of the oysters and sell them.

 

The oysters have gills and can breathe like a fish. The oyster has many predators such as oyster catchers, star fish and crabs, but some predators don’t have to be animals, some are parasites. One of them is a drill. It can penetrate outer shell and puts its digestive fluid under the oyster’s shell and it turns into a soupy mixture and the drill eats the oyster. The QX disease if one of the many diseases that are dangerous to the oyster once the disease gets into oyster’s digestive system it kills it. The way you can tell if is infected or not is when the stomach is light-brown. It is not curable.

 

Oysters eat plankton and algae but some may eat pollutants that are in water surrounding the oyster. The oysters have a life span of 20 years. Most oysters when they are less than 1 year old they are male but when they are more than 1 year old they turn female.

 

 

 

[mom31257]

I think I would work on the idea of a topic sentence and each detail in the paragraph supporting the topic. For example, the second paragraph is completely about the two kinds of oysters. However, the third paragraph is about gills, predators, and a disease.  

 

He has some good information and sentences, so I think I would work with him to rewrite it into the following topics.

 

Introduction 

paragraph describing the oyster's body and systems

paragraph about the two types (2nd paragraph)

paragraph about predators

conclusion

 

Make an outline for the 3 paragraphs. Take each detail and place it under the appropriate category, crossing out those that don't belong. 

 

You could begin with the idea of an introductory and closing statement if you don't want full paragraphs. I use IEW with my ds, and he will be doing that before actual paragraphs. 

[housemouse]

Well, ds added in a few things and rearranged sentences to be more on topic as has been suggested. It has been submitted for an evaluation and he got a B+ with some comments on things missing and what can be improved.