Developing Internal Templates

One of the presentations I attended at last month's TESOL Convention made me think about the types of support materials I provide my students -- and how often I expect them to "just know" things.

"Teaching Writing in a Multilevel Mainstream Classroom," led by three teachers and a professor of teacher education, took us through an eight-week unit on writing fictional narratives with students in grade four. But the lesson had a twist. Before writing the stories, each student had to research a particular animal from a scientific point of view, describing, among other things, its behaviors and habitat. Once they had that part down and had moved on to the fictional piece, those behaviors had to be reflected in the character development. The habitat became the setting.

Let me first say how impressed I was that these teachers had been able to devote eight weeks (eight weeks!) to this lesson; I know that effective writing instruction is surprisingly time-consuming. But what stood out for me most was the range of support materials they had provided for their students. Among them:

* a graphic organizer for the research component
* a separate graphic organizer for story development
* a list of possible character traits using enriched vocabulary
* a chart to back up each proposed character trait with evidence in the form of behaviors (my personal favorite)
* a list of transitional phrases to help with order and pacing

It's easy to forget that many students don't carry these structures or techniques around in their heads already, and to simply instruct them to go ahead and write. This workshop helped me to keep in mind that even the most basic writing assignments are really not so basic. They require a pretty wide range of tools if they are to help students develop their own internal templates, which is really the ultimate goal.

Getting organized

As part of our study of the Six Traits of Writing, my students and I have been working on organization. This trait, which focuses on the structure of writing, is actually made up of several smaller sub-skills:

* Writing strong introductions, hooks, and leads
* Balancing creativity with formula
* Pacing & sequencing
* Use of thoughtful, interesting transitions
* Writing satisfying conclusions
* Creating strong & satisfying titles

As always, The Writing Fix has some great online resources. If you're looking for a strong intro sentence, try this prompt generator. At the click of a button, the site generates lines like these:

* He tried to remember who had talked him into this.
* I cared what she thought, so when she dared me I knew I was in trouble.
* She had been warned, but now it was too late.

To teach this trait, I've mostly been sticking with Vicki Spandel's series on the Six Traits, but I've also found this list of transitional words and phrases quite helpful.

Idea development: getting started

The first of the Six Traits of Writing that I'll be tackling with my students is idea development, which can actually be broken down into a number of sub-skills:

* using strong and memorable details
* balancing showing and telling
* writing about unique topics
* developing an original idea within a safe frame
* exploring themes and theses, big topics and sub-topics
* self-reflecting to write about what you know

It's amazing what resources teachers are willing to share online. I'm currently smitten with WritingFix, which has an entire section on idea development. On the same site, I also found the following song, attributed to "Mrs. Stelle." Thanks, Mrs. Stelle!

Ideas
To the tune: She’ll be Comin’ Around the Mountain
by Mrs. Stelle

Can you tell me what makes up a good idea?
Can you tell me what defines a good idea?
A single topic, clear and focused,
with fresh insights that provoke us,
anecdotes “though not required”
can cinch the deal.

If your story is a bore or moves too slow,
if it wanders off the topic it’s a “NO”,
you must answer readers’ questions
using details and suggestions
all while telling us what
we don’t already know.

If you want for your ideas to score a four,
then you’ll have to spin a yarn that gives us more,
than just a list of things you did once
that impressed the other kids once--
we’ve all read a thousand papers
before yours!

Your best traits

My students and I have begun using the Six Traits of Writing model in class and are working to answer one basic question: "What is good writing?"

The Six Traits, shown at right, provide a common language and framework for describing the characteristics of good writing. Still, evaluating a piece of student work can be very subjective, which is why I've become a big fan of rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that lists specific criteria and objectives for an assignment. It explicitly states what is expected and how the quality of a student's work will be rated. For my class, I'm consulting a number of rubrics based on the Six Traits of Writing, but here is a particularly student-friendly one I like.

In addition to discussing the rubric with my students, I'll be posting descriptions of each trait on a bulletin board. Web sites that feature some basic posters can be found here and here.

I've written about the Writing Process before, and I should mention that the Six Traits model is not a replacement for it. Rather, the two work together. The Six Traits describe the components that make up a quality piece of writing, while the Writing Process offers a step-by-step path to creating it.

What Would J.K. Rowling Do?

Yesterday my students and I discussed why some writing is so compelling to read. Since they're in grades four to six, there are lots of Harry Potter fans, and they tried to articulate just what makes a Harry Potter book so hard to put down. One student put it this way: "When I'm reading it, I feel like I'm right there in it. And even though I know it's not true, I ask myself, 'How is this not true? How is this just fantasy?'"

We considered things like how the books were organized, the voice the author had developed, the research that must have gone into each book in the series, and how easily the language flowed.

Then we talked about how the author, J.K. Rowling, might have moved through the various stages of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and finally publishing. How did she narrow down the topic? What helped her figure out what to say first and how the events should be sequenced and paced? How did she determine which types of revisions to make? And how much of the editing had she ultimately done herself?

This exercise helped to reinforce that whenever we're in the middle of a piece of writing, there is so much to sort, sift through, develop and change -- which is why we must all take things step by step. Even J.K. Rowling.

What a Process

The Writing Process describes five logical steps that writers follow in the creation of a quality piece of writing.

Step 1: Prewriting Also known as the brainstorming stage. Students think about their chosen topic and come up with ideas. Graphic organizers are often used to help map out some of the main points and details.

Step 2: Drafting The point at which students begin composing their work. Since the aim at this stage is to get thoughts down on paper, the focus is on ideas, not grammar or spelling.

Step 3: Revising A time to make major changes to improve the writing. This is a critical time to figure out what needs to be added, deleted, reorganized or developed in order to make the work more compelling. Students may get feedback from peers and teachers.

Step 4: Editing The step at which grammar, spelling and punctuation take center stage. Students may consult editing checklists and proofread their own and others' work.

Step 5: Publishing A time to share writing with others. This can take many forms, including Web publishing, displaying student work in the classroom, or even reading the work aloud to others.


Certainly, the Writing Process seems simple enough. But to be perfectly honest, those steps have often filled me with more questions than answers, particularly about how I can effectively explain, assign, and assess a piece of student work as it moves through the stages.

For one, how long should the process take--a few days, a week, two weeks? Does jotting down a few notes on a graphic organizer satisfy the prewriting requirement? More importantly, how do I help my students to move through the revision stage in a way that's truly productive?

These are some of the questions I'll be exploring in the upcoming weeks.