Harrison Park 3rd grade teacher, Jerri Walker, noticed her students were writing with simple, short sentences. She added a quick lesson on sentence combining. Notice how she used a shared experience as her example for the lesson.
She followed the Gradual Release of Responsibility model by first demonstrating for students how to combine two sentences, then inviting them to share verbally with a partner about other possible combinations. Volunteers made suggestions about other combinations which Jerri recorded on chart paper.
She focused on the use of connecting words and commas in sentence combining by using a different color of marker for the comma and the connecting word.

Jerri included a critical step in her lesson that is often overlooked. Even after she modeled and had students share ideas on the rug, she knew they needed one more guided practice step before being able to apply the skill independently. She had students go back to their table groups and, in groups of four, come up with a whole new example of a compound sentence based on a shared experience. This step of collaborative or cooperative practice is so important when students are learning a new skill.

The Gradual Release model is not just I do, we do, you do. It is I do, we do, you do together, you do alone.