I once taught a 5th grade G.A.T.E. class at a very affluent school for the final two months of the school year.  It was my off-track vacation time and their teacher could not finish the year. I had never seen students like these before. These kids openly, in fact brazenly did the math when receiving an assignment. They cared about the writing assignment exactly as much as the math told them to care about it.

These are the two “MATH QUESTIONS” that came out of their mouths NON-STOP:
1. Is this graded?
2. How much of our grade is it?

Depending on the answers to those two questions they would quickly determine how much they were going to invest in the assignment.

They would decide:
• I better get started on it now and I better do a great job. Also, I had better check my work for careless mistakes.
Or
• I can goof off for 7 minutes and then quickly dash off the assignment. I’ll probably get an A, but if I get a B, it’s not that important because this one grade shouldn’t affect my overall grade.
Or
• This isn’t graded? Hey, Joe, what are you doing after school?

If it wasn’t graded… they didn’t care about the assignment. (It is different when a class has experienced multiple teachers but still… I had never done so much grading in my life. I learned a lot from that high-achieving G.A.T.E. class.)

Struggling Students ALSO Do the MATH before they do the WRITING

A lot of inner-city students, remedial students, ESL students, and students with learning disabilities also do the math before they start their writing assignment… and for them, they don’t like how it all adds up.

For them… it adds up to failure… so why get started?

I teach lots of kids in this latter category and I learned early in my teaching career that I have got to get them writing and I have got to get them writing fast. Quite simply, teaching students how to get an assignment, break it down, and then start and finish the assignment changes “the math” for them.

After they are “writing fast” I can layer all kinds of fantastic writing instruction on top of these core writing skills. With these core writing skills firmly in place, students seem to respond about 50% better to all the other writing instruction I layer on top.

With these core skills in place “THE MATH” has changed so students invest more. They are just like the G.AT.E. kids!

THEN ADD LAYERS OF DEPTH

Acting with an Accent… in Writing?

In acting, an actor creates the character and then layers on the accent.  The accent is just like a hat or a costume that the actor will layer on over his character. The character is supposed to be a real person, not an accent. What makes up a person who he is? It is all the things the person says, does, thinks, feels, and believes. In other words, the accent is not the character. The accent is simply a layer put on top of a person.

Poor actors think the accent is the character. With these actors it is very easy to see the accent. In fact, that is often all you can see. This makes it very difficult to see a real person underneath that accent.

Most of the writing tips, writing tricks, and writing tools that are taught in school, really should be layered on top of a solid foundation.

The heart of teaching elementary students (and remedial writers in upper grades) how to be successful writers has to do with four aspects of writing:

1. How to organize and structure writing
2. How good writing is about good communication
3. How to break down an assignment and get started
4. How to get the job done in the time allowed

Once students are comfortable with these skills, layering on more tips and tricks is easy!

Good writers and successful students have mastered how to receive an assignment, break it down, organize their thoughts and then quickly start and finish the assignment. In short, they can write fast!

Be sure to read the next blog post on “Teaching Children to Write FAST Using the Timed Writing System.”