But not all paragraphs are good… let alone perfect. In fact, it doesn’t take much to make a seemingly good paragraph go bad. I have rounded up two paragraphs that I am sad to say have gone bad. One we can salvage… the other is just plain bad. That second one has no future. We will simply have to scratch it and start over.

This Paragraph Can Be Saved

If you have even one detail that is not about the topic sentence, then it IS NOT perfect. Notice how “Detail B” is out of control off doing his own thing. “Detail B” is not talking about the “topic sentence.”  The solution with this paragraph is to edit or revise.

Detail B has gone bad!

Example:
Over the weekend my family and I went to the park. I played on the swings with my little sister until she was all tuckered out.  I hope next weekend I can see the new “Space World” movie.  The best part of the park was the wonderful picnic my mom packed. Going to the park with my family is always a lot of fun!

Warning! Danger! This is a Bad, Bad Paragraph

This is a collection of disconnected sentences. Some may claim that it is a paragraph… but it is not. It tries to be one… but it can’t. It’s an imposter…. a fake. There is no main idea to this paragraph. This will be difficult for others to read. It’s sad to see good sentences turn so bad… start over.

So sad...

Example:

Over the weekend my family and I went to the park. It was fun. I want to see the new “Space World” movie. My birthday is next week. I hope one day my parents let me have a dog. Well, that’s all I have to say.

Be sure to read the next post which is “Biggest Teacher Mistakes in Teaching Paragraphs.” Hint: Don’t spend too long teaching paragraphs!

(“Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” spends just the right amount of time on paragraphs before making the jump to complete essays!)

The State of Affairs for “Beginning, Middle, and Endings” in Student Writing

The sad truth is students aren’t interested in beginning, middle, and ending. No. I’m not sure that they ever were… but in this modern age… it’s passé. It’s boring. It doesn’t pique their interest… and they don’t see what it is so important about it. “What’s so important about… blah… blah… blah…. beginnings, middles… introductions… bodies… I don’t get it…” 

I’ll tell you what students are interested in… playing with time.

Beginning, Middle and Ending? Okay… But In What Order?

Kids love the idea of flashbacks, flash-forwards, foreshadowing and creating suspense or curiosity by holding back information. All that’s interesting to them…

However, it’s pretty hard to teach them those concepts, and it’s pretty hard for students to learn them… that is, unless they have a solid understanding of beginning, middle, and ending.

Beginning, Middle and Ending… the Basics

On a basic level we want students to be thinking about and planning for their beginning, middle and ending in their writing.

Before beginning, prepare carefully.
Marcus Tullius Cicero 

Then we want students to continue to think about these concepts and self-monitor as they write. Even more important though is we want them to “feel the rhythm” of beginning, middle, ending… beginning, middle, ending… both within their paragraphs and within and their entire essay, report or story.

Why? 

As an adult… you have likely learned about the need for…“closure.” Haven’t you ever felt the need for a little “closure?” Was it your imagination… or did you really “need closure?” Well, it turns out there is actually a scientific reason that people simply need closure.

The Scientific Need for Beginning, Middle, and Endings

This scientific reason is called the “Zeigarnik Effect.” The Zeigarnik Effect describes how people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones.
Here is one example of the “Zeigarnik Effect” at work. I once began reading a book, but I didn’t really like it. I got busy and never finished the last 30 pages. Ten years later I was still aware that I had not finished that book. I finally went to the library and checked it out so I could finish it. This was for a book I did not really like! It was easier to simply finish the book instead of thinking about it for another 10 years!

What the “Zeigarnik Effect” Means for Student Writers

Do your students jump around in their writing? Do they write whatever pops into their head? Do they not know how to start or end their writing? All this and much, much more is solved with just a little understanding of the “Zeigarnik Effect.”

The “Zeigarnik Effect” teaches students “Don’t start an idea if you are not going to finish it. Your reader does not want to be thinking about an idea that you did not finish 10 years later!” 

The “Zeigarnik Effect” also teaches students “Get rid of ideas that are started and go nowhere. This is called editing.”

The “Zeigarnik Effect” is a Fun Tool that Gives Students a…

First off, the “Zeigarnik Effect” is a fun concept. For students it’s right up there with flashbacks and foreshadowing. 

Second, it’s a tool. Students learn to appreciate “beginning, middle, and ending” and they understand how they can use it to control their writing… and eventually control their reader’s emotional involvement.

Third, once “beginning, middle, and endings” are mastered, the “Zeigarnik Effect” leads to very effective and controlled advanced writing techniques. Students easily learn how to create suspense, curiosity, and interest in their writing… and it’s fun!

No Playing With Time… Until You Master Beginning, Middle, Ending… Beginning, Middle…

We teach students that paragraphs and stories have a beginning, middle, and ending. We teach students that essays and reports have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Students learn that good writing almost always has a very clear beginning, middle, and ending.

This must be mastered.

If you want your students to develop a natural rhythm and flow to their writing be sure to get your free guide to writing at the homepage and while you’re at it, check out the “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” writing program! You won’t know what you’re missing till you see it!

Every end is a new beginning.
Proverb

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
Seneca

A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end but not necessarily in that order.
Jean-Luc Godard (French Filmmaker)

1. The topic has not been assigned. Students choose the topic.

2. The topic has been assigned. Students must follow the directions and stay on topic.

Teachers must find the right balance between these two methods when giving assignments.

These ideas will help when you do assign the topic… however they are especially helpful when your students’ topics have not been assigned. These methods are great for eliminating that sinking feeling that students feel when they do not know what to write about.

The Topic has Been Assigned

This is covered extensively in Pattern #13 and Pattern #14 of the “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” writing program. Students learn TWO specific strategies for making sure that their writing starts “ON TOPIC” and finishes “ON TOPIC.” Students learn to focus on and follow DIRECTIONS.

The Topic Has Not Been Assigned

Freedom! Students have more freedom, and that means students have a lot more decisions to make. Students sometimes are not quite so thrilled when they discover that the responsibility for these decisions is… theirs.

If the topic has not been assigned, how are students supposed to come up with a topic? Where do good ideas come from? Will any idea do? Or does it have to be a great idea? All of these will be answered below and in the process… your students will become idea machines.

How to Come Up with Great Ideas: It Just Came to Me

Many of the world’s greatest ideas have come to people when they were not trying to come up with them. People ask, “How did you come up with that idea? It’s amazing!” And the other person replies, “It just came to me.”

Here Are Some Places Where Ideas May Just Come to Students

• hiking in the mountains
• taking out the trash
• taking a shower
• laying in bed right before falling asleep
• walking their dog
• grocery shopping with their mom
• stuck in traffic
• cleaning their room
• doing chores
• running an errand
• eating breakfast
• sitting in their backyard looking up at the stars
• daydreaming in class (It happens from time to time, so let’s put it to use.)

Each of the above activities is an activity that keeps a person busy, but does not require great focus or concentration. Often when a person is faced with a difficult decision or problem, someone will say, “Just sleep on it.” It is very likely the next day they will have come to a decision. This shows how so many of the great ideas come to us when we do not have the pressure or stress of trying to come up with a great idea.

The mystery writer Agatha Christie once said, “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” I rest my case!

Three Ways to Save that Great Idea for Later: Harness Those Quiet Times and Harvest a Bounty of Great Ideas!

What will students want to save? Here are a few ideas!

• Interesting words or phrases
• Colorful descriptions
• Things that happened
• Things people said
• Things they saw
• Ideas for stories
• Inventions
• Things they wonder about
• Things that seem impossible
• How they or someone else felt
• How to solve a problem 
• Something that was strange
• Something that was incredible

1. Scratch It

Many, many writers always have a pen and some scratch paper close at hand. Most any movie or television show where a writer is on screen, sooner or later, you will see the writer reach into his or her pocket, take out a pen and paper, and say, “Oh, I have got to write that down.” They know they can’t afford to wait until it is time to write, to come up with those great ideas.

Provide students with a “Scratch It Idea Sheet.” This is a handy way to make sure students always have a piece of paper handy to get down those great ideas.

One of the best places to keep a pen and paper handy is right next to the bed at night. The poet Carrie Latet said, “If I’m trying to sleep, the ideas won’t stop. If I’m trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness.” In other words, get students in the habit of not waiting until it’s too late. Let’s see how many of those great ideas your students can save.

What do students do with their collections of great ideas? They can create a piggy bank of sorts for great ideas. “The Idea Bank” Use a box or container and cut a slit or hole in the top. Have students decorate them to reflect their unique personality. At the end of the day, slide all of those scraps of paper with all those great ideas they have collected throughout the day in through the top. They will be amazed at how many ideas they have collected when they sort through them a month, or even a week later.

In order to save these great ideas for eternity, have students transfer them to the computer. Have students list the ideas in the order they get them, or they can organize these great ideas into categories using “a table.”

2. Record It

Another common way to capture all those great ideas is it to carry around a voice recorder. These days many cell phones and mp3 players also have the ability to be used as a voice recorder to store all those great ideas. Have students transfer these to paper or the computer.

3. Journal It

One last and very common technique that writers use is to keep a “Writer’s Journal.” In this journal they write down great and even not so great ideas that come to them. The journal gives the writer plenty of space to explore their many ideas. This then helps them decide which ideas they would like to turn into essays or stories. It also provides a writer a safe place to write in freedom, freedom from evaluation, judgment, and grades. It’s a place to write, but not a place where one must be correct. It’s a place for ideas!

A paragraph is a collection of sentences with unity of purpose. A paragraph handles and exhausts a distinct topic.
                                                                   Alexander Bain – 1871
 
This description of a paragraph is about as good as it gets! Alexander Bain is also credited as having been the first person to have formally laid down the rules of paragraph construction.  (Bain’s original rules for paragraphs are outlined below.)

A Modern Look at Paragraph Rules

There is a beauty and logic to all of Bain’s rules for paragraphs, however modern paragraph theory is a little more generalized and seems to center on these three principles. All-in-all they do contain most of Bain’s ideas, however, they also allow a little more freedom for creativity in paragraph construction.

1. Unity – Single minded focus of ideas. All the sentences must have unity of purpose AND there must be no information in the paragraph which does not serve that purpose.

2. Coherence – Ideas flow in a manner which makes them easily understandable.

3. Development – Ideas support and develop a topic sentence or main idea.

Alexander Bain’s Six Paragraph Rules Paraphrased for Easy Reading and Easy Understanding

1. The direction and purpose of each sentence should connect to what came prior. This must be explicit and unmistakable.

2. When several consecutive sentences repeat or illustrate the same idea, they should, as much possible be formed alike. (Parallel construction) The main subject and predicate should maintain their positions throughout.

3. The opening sentence (topic sentence) is expected to indicate the subject of the paragraph.

4. Each sentence in a paragraph should be found in its most suitable location within the paragraph. Every paragraph has a plan dictated by the nature of the composition. As such, sentences should be laid out in accordance of this plan. An out of place sentence brings confusion.

5. A paragraph should possess unity and contain a definite purpose. There should be no sentences or information contained in that paragraph which does not support that purpose. 

6. The big sentences within the paragraph should be the important ideas. The smaller sentences should be the less important ideas. Everything should have bulk and prominence according to its importance.

Interesting concepts! Proportion, symmetry, parallelism, balance…

Paragraph Writing is an Art, but Don’t Forget the Rules!

It wasn’t until the 1600’s when the growing importance of the printing press would put the paragraph on the road to its current prominence in the written English language. (In fact, some still consider the paragraphs most important attribute to be the visual aspect that helps the reader to clearly survey the printed page.)

It’s a little surprising to think that before 1871 the rules of paragraphs had not been clearly laid down. When you think about it… 1871 is not that long ago! 

Though the rules of paragraphs have become more universally understood and taught, there remains much art in what writers actually do. Most confident writers rarely think of the rules of paragraphs as they write. Confident writers just know when to start a new paragraph without even thinking about it. (Most then make changes to their paragraphs as they reread and edit.)

Supporting the argument that there is an art to paragraph writing… beyond rules, is that studies have shown that when paragraph formatting is removed from a piece of writing, few people will re-paragraph it the same way it was before. In fact, the same person may not re-paragraph it the same way two times in a row.

Teaching Kids Paragraphs

Early in my teaching career I remember spending lots of time trying to get students to master paragraphs. I thought, “If I can just get them to master these paragraphs… it’s going to change everything!” 

What I learned was that students don’t develop paragraph mastery until they develop an understanding of how paragraphs fit together within an essay, and understand the relationship between paragraphs and the introduction and conclusion.

A paragraph in multi-paragraph writing reveals the truer purpose and the truer need for the paragraph. Paragraphs make sense to students when they discover how to create a unique “unity of purpose” for each distinct paragraph in their multi-paragraph writing.

It’s a great feeling when you see your students stop thinking about the rules, but still maintain wonderful paragraph structure and paragraph form! That’s what I call a “confident writer!”

Find out how to make this happen at the “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” homepage!

In the real world of state standards and standardized tests, it can be a little difficult for a teacher to get their head around what Writer’s Workshop is. As long as I have been teaching there has been a continuing push towards making teachers more and more accountable for student achievement.

With Writer’s Workshop teachers are accountable… but they are also asked to take a leap of faith into the world of flexibility. The teachers are asked to believe that Writer’s Workshop is the best way to get the results that EVERYONE wants for the students they teach.

In this multipart series on Writer’s Workshop you will:
• Learn what Writer’s Workshop is
• Discover how you may already be using certain aspects of Writer’s Workshop
• Learn some tips for implementing Writer’s Workshop
• Learn how to avoid some of the stress and traps of implementing Writer’s Workshop

I am a teacher… and the realities of REAL teaching in actual classrooms will always be a part of everything you will read in this series.

What is Writer’s Workshop?

Here are “the parts” of Writer’s Workshop. We will examine each of the following parts and will explore the pros, the cons, the problem areas, and the areas of benefit for each stage of Writer’s Workshop.

1. Mini-lesson – Direct instruction lasting between 5-15 minutes.
2. Status of the Class – As students begin work on their individual writing project, the teacher quickly monitors the status of each student. Where are the students in their writing and how will they be spending their writing period? (2-3 minutes)
3. Writing and Conferencing – Students write and teachers either write or conference. The teachers can conference with individual students or small groups. Teachers are encourage to spend at least some workshop time actually writing themselves in order to model what authors do. (25- 40 minutes)
4. Sharing – There are a variety of ways to share. Author’s chair, peer editing, and reading to at least one other student are popular methods. (5-10 minutes)

Using the Writing Process in Writer’s Workshop

It is important to note that the entire Writer’s Workshop process incorporates the entire Writing Process. Here is a simple version of the writing process outlined for you:

1. Prewriting
2. Drafting
3. Revising
4. Proofreading
5. Publishing

The actual writing process is not a straight line and there are other models of the writing process which more accurately reflect the TRUE writing process. This five step model is “the classic version” and one which is easy for students to grasp. Essentially, this is what students will be implementing during Writer’s Workshop. 

Using the Six Traits of Effective Writing in Writer’s Workshop

Also worth mentioning is that a natural part or integration of Writer’s Workshop is the Six Traits of Effective Writing model.

The Six Traits of Effective Writing are:
1. Ideas
2. Organization
3. Voice
4. Word Choice
5. Sentence Fluency
6. Conventions

Let’s Use More and More and More Workshops!

 How important is Writer’s Workshop to creating fantastic writers? Proponents propose that it is indispensible to creating students who can truly write. But before we go hog-wild on Writer’s Workshop here are some more workshops where the proponents propose the dire necessity of the workshop.

• Reader’s Workshop – Your students will develop independence in reading and become lifelong readers outside of the classroom. Your students will conference with peers and teachers yet the focus is always on becoming independent learners. Reader’s Workshop often becomes the favorite part of a student’s day!

• Independent Work Time (IWT) – Students must have a time each day where they work productively in groups while the teacher meets the needs of individual children. Teachers also need a time where they can challenge advanced students and give support to struggling students… and the Independent Work Time Workshop is the method you should use!

• Math Workshop – Meet the needs of your children! Boring textbooks leave behind the students who can’t keep up while too much hands-on math ensures that all your students will fall behind. We have the perfect solution. It’s “Math Workshop!” We have uniquely found the right balance!

I think you will be able to find a “workshop theory” for every single subject and every single concept that a teacher might teach.

The Truth about Writer’s Workshop

The truth about Writer’s Workshop is that teachers have used workshop strategies for years and years without a lot of the rhetoric associated with “Writer’s Workshop.”

Many workshop strategies are used across the curriculum in order to:
• differentiate instruction
• scaffold instruction
• meet student’s needs

Sometimes people get carried away with “philosophies.” Can anyone say “out of touch administrators” or “professional development guru?” It seems a lot of decision makers have not been running a classroom for a long, long time…

Personally I use many aspects of Writer’s Workshop… and… I also know I have to use my time wisely!

There is not enough time in the day for workshop after workshop and still teach the curriculum and meet state standards and prepare for the upcoming standardized test.

But… it’s great to know about all these theories and strategies so we can continue to grow as teachers!

Be sure to:
1. Check back for Part 2 of this series
2. Read “The Controversy over Writer’s Workshop in Elementary and Middle School”
3. Go to the homepage and discover “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay.”

The Different Kinds of Paragraphs

1. How-to Paragraph (Process Paragraph) – First, Next, Then, Finally
2. Compare and Contrast Paragraph – Eggplant is both good…and bad!
3. Descriptive Paragraph – It was a dark and stormy night, yet the moon had an enchanting glow.
4. Explanatory Paragraph – There are many reasons that “doctors” consider eggplant to be healthy.
5. Classifying Paragraph – There are two kinds of vegetables. There are bad vegetables and there are so-so vegetables.
6. Narrative Paragraph – It was a dark and stormy night, and Johnny had many chores that still needed to get done.
7. Persuasive paragraph – There are many reasons that parents should let children choose if they want to eat their vegetables.
8. Definition Paragraph – Some people think that being lazy is sitting around all day doing nothing. That is not true. A person might be thinking very deeply, and that is not lazy.
9. Evaluation Paragraph – Vegetables are not as good for you as many people think. In fact, there is much evidence indicating that vegetables are actually unhealthy.

Structure of a Paragraph

• Tell them, tell them, and tell them! Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them.
• You transitions smoothly and naturally between ideas.
• All of the sentences in a paragraph are connected. You should know how.

Strategies for Teaching Paragraphs to Children

• What idea does not belong in this paragraph?
• Which of these is not a paragraph?
• Follow this formula or pattern.
• Use this graphic organizer to map out your ideas and then write your paragraph.
• Explain, demonstrate, imitate, and practice.
• Topic sentence. Three details. Repeat topic sentence in a creative way.
• Use these words to create a paragraph.
• Pretend you are talking to someone who has no idea of what you are talking about. Maybe they are from another planet and you need to talk to them in a way that will make them understand… Understand?

Analogies of What a Paragraph Is

• A paragraph is a formula or pattern of ideas that you put together in a special way.
• A paragraph is a family of ideas that are all related and connected.
• A paragraph is a sandwich of ideas.
• A paragraph is a cohesive unit of ideas about one topic or main idea.

General Philosophies about Paragraphs

• A paragraph is 3-5 sentences.
• A paragraph is 5- 12 sentences.
• A paragraph is about one main idea.
• All other sentences in that paragraph must support that main idea.
• The sentences in the paragraph must be in a logical order.
• You start a new paragraph when you have changed to a new main idea.
• You can give information about the main idea OR you can explain the main idea OR you can give your opinion about the main idea.
• The topic sentence is usually the first sentence in a paragraph.
• The topic sentence usually contains the main idea of the paragraph.
• Topic sentence, supporting details, concluding sentence.

Main Idea and Topic Sentence

• ??????????

General and Specific

• ??????????

You can get children to repeat everything on this page like clockwork and have it all fly out the window when it is most important. If this happens, the reason is they don’t really understand what a main idea is or what a topic sentence is. They don’t understand “general” and “specific.” You have failed to get their mind around these concepts…

If they don’t truly understand these concepts… multi-paragraph writing will be VERY hard…

Fourteen years of teaching writing and I have perfected a way of making children understand these concepts and not just be able to repeat the words… (Be sure to go to the home page to check out the writing program…)

“A paragraph is a group of sentences about one main idea or topic. A paragraph usually contains between 5-8 sentences about that one main idea or topic. All of your sentences in the paragraph must be about that one main idea or topic. These supporting detail sentences are supporting the author’s main idea. The main idea is what is most important in that paragraph. It is what the author truly wants you to understand.”

Explain, demonstrate, and practice… It would take me a long time to get the kinds of results I wanted for my students, and the longer the writing assignment, the more the rules would fly out the window…

“Listen kids, when you want to write about a new main idea, you must start a new paragraph. Does this make sense?” They would all gleefully cheer, “Yes!”

They would try to show me how well they understood by writing an entire page and a half about ONE MAIN IDEA. That’s how well they understood…

“Okay kids, let me explain a paragraph one more time. You see… a paragraph can give information about one main idea, it can explain one topic or you can give your opinion about the main idea or topic. Be sure to put the sentences in an order that will make sense to your reader. You want it to be a logical and natural sounding order. Does this make sense?”

I would be quite enthusiastic when the class would greet me with a resounding, “Yes, Mr. Barger! We get it! Can we start writing now?! Can we show you how well we understand?”

Now the students were able to produce TWO PAGES that contained TWO PARAGRAPHS!

“Listen kids… I want you to choose a topic sentence and I want you to think about that topic sentence… and choose JUST three details that support that main idea. These are supporting details and they support the main idea or topic sentence. Your topic sentence is a kind of general statement about the topic and the supporting details are more specific. Does this make sense?”

I think you know the answer… Luckily I am very patient.

“Listen kids… a topic sentence can be anywhere in the paragraph, but most often the topic sentence is the FIRST SENTENCE in a paragraph. It’s true that sometimes the topic sentence is in the middle of a paragraph and sometimes it is at the end of a paragraph, but USUALLY it is the first sentence in a paragraph. Let’s keep it simple.”

The children would be very excited that I wanted to keep things simple.

“Children, I want you to put your topic sentence first and I want you to follow that topic sentence with 3- 5 supporting details and then I want you to write a conclusion sentence. For now, your conclusion sentence can either sum up what the entire paragraph was about, or it can repeat the topic sentence in a new and creative way. How does this sound? Does all this make sense? Oh… and we have state testing coming up, and I want you all to really concentrate on great paragraphs, because they are really important on this state testing that we are going to be doing. Okay…?…? Okay??”

Students would assure me they understood. In fact, they could repeat back every single word I had said! It was almost impressive…

However, students would continue to struggle with paragraphs. Basically, a run on sentence is the easiest way to see that children don’t understand what a paragraph is. If a sentence goes on and on, they don’t understand what a paragraph is…

Often the source of the difficulty is something like, “What’s a topic?”

“Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” takes children from simple sentences to complete essays FAST and with AMAZING comprehension! It just makes sense to them…

A while back I was having some rather annoying dental issues. My dentist, Dr. Karen, had all sorts of ideas. She was saying, “Well, we could try this procedure or we could try that procedure…”

In the end I explained to her that my bottom line was, “I want it fixed. The truth is… I don’t want to do anything if it’s not going to fix it. I want the problem solved.”

She laughed and said, “You are such a guy.”

Teaching Writing Creatively

She’s right, I am. In fact, my teacher credentialing program (many years back) was a bit of a paradigm shift for me with so many new and creative ways of engaging students. In fact it was a seemingly endless sea of creative ideas and creative ways that one could be creative in creating creative lesson plans.

When I began my teaching credential program I had already been substitute teaching for a year and had been quite successful. My philosophy (if I had one…) was kind of old school. School like it was when I went to school. My teacher credentialing program was an eye opening learning experience. It was quite the opposite of what my “current teaching philosophy” was. It was really, really… creative.

Initially, I thought all these wild and creative ideas were the secret keys to student success. True breakthroughs! As I gained experience, I started to move a little bit back in the other direction… to the way I am with my dentist.

I began to hear exciting and enticing ideas and think, “Sounds great… but wait a minute. I want something that’s going to work. I have a lot to cover and I would need an extra hour every day just to get in everything that I want to get done. Now is this thing going to work? I want a guarantee!  It sounds good… but is it going to work?  Will it be AT LEAST somewhat practical and somewhat time efficient in a classroom of 30-36 students?

A Compromise

I like the Six Traits of Writing model. Makes sense to me! It lets me clearly see what I’m teaching in my writing instruction. But at the end of the day I’m not sure I really look at whether I have been successful at teaching the Six Traits of Writing. I look at my students’ writing and the state standards to determine if I have been successful teaching my students to write.

Here are just a few of the questions I ask:
1. Do I clearly understand what my students have written?
2. Do I like what they are saying?
3. Is what they have written enjoyable to read?
4. Do I like the way they have said it?
5. Have my students met the standards?

Now much more than ever I determine if the writing instruction has been successful by the students’ reactions to their own writing. I expect students to be thrilled and blown away with their own progress. (If you haven’t heard by now… Pattern Based Writing…Quick & Easy Essay…)

Teaching Writing Videos

Here are two videos on the Six Traits of Writing. One is on organization and the other is on ideas. I find the videos interesting. In fact I find them fascinating. Mastery of teaching writing is always fascinating to me.

However, the part of me that was a frustration to my dentist is also saying, “Look, I want something I know is going to work. What exactly have you said that my students need to understand in order to write well? And how exactly am I supposed to make them understand this?”

After you watch these, compare them to this video on the five paragraph essay that I have posted here. This is the video from Ashworth University that is designed for high school students.

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is kind of like “The Six Traits Lady” meets “The Ashworth University Lady.” (Actually, it’s a much more visual and kinesthetic version of the two…)