Do your students struggle answering open-ended responses with complete sentences? I know mine do! One thing that has helped me has been the PQA strategy… Put the Question in the Answer. How does it work?
Let’s say you are reading Maniac Magee and your students have this simple question to answer…
What did Maniac do when he was on stage? Normally I would get answers like this…
Ran out of the theater (who ran out of the theater?) He ran out of the theater (who is he?)
If they used the PQA strategy the answer would look like this…
When Maniac was on stage he ran out of the theater.
I have found the PQA strategy to be helpful when I am grading too. When I see students starting responses with a pronoun then I just write PQA and they know what I need them to fix.
I have created a product to help you use the PQA strategy. There are 4 color posters to choose from and 2 Black & White versions. All six contain adorable Melonheadz clipart.
The product also contains directions for printing the posters 2 per page and 4 per page. This is perfect for printing the Black & White version for students to tape into notebooks or onto their desks.
Head over to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store to grab this product for FREE!
I still have to repeatedly teach this to my middle schoolers. I always remind them that vague pronouns are not okay.