The benefits of mastering prewriting skills for elementary and middle school students are really quite profound. By learning effective prewriting techniques students can develop the skill of being able to see the big picture before they start an assignment or project of any kind.

When students have truly mastered prewriting they will have developed the habits and the skills of being able to think ahead, as well as being able to find the beginning, middle and ending of all their assignments. This greatly improves their writing and their class work across all subjects. That is powerful!

Prewriting Is a Map for Students: It is a Map that They Create

Prewriting is an excellent map! It helps keep students from getting lost. It also helps students to easily get back on track if they do get lost. It is a map that will greatly improve your students’ writing.

However, looking at a map it is not the same thing as being there. Your students’ writing may turn out to be somewhat different than what their prewriting shows.

Once students begin the actual writing they:
• May not use their prewriting as much as you thought they would
• May use their prewriting in a way that is different than you thought they would

Students may use their prewriting to:
• Check in with and monitor their ideas. They may do this in order to verify and validate that they like the direction they are headed.
• Check and see which important ideas they have not used. Their prewriting is like their personal bank account of good ideas.
• Monitor the direction they are headed and to monitor how their entire essay will connect together.

“Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” contains a unique and powerful prewriting system that teaches students how to improve their writing before they even start writing…

What this means for students is:
• Less editing… and students like that idea!
• Finishing work faster… and students like that idea!
• Creating first drafts that are so good that not even their teacher can believe it is a first draft… and everyone likes that idea!

Be sure to click above for your free guide to writing and to check out the “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” homepage!

Since calling a bottom on the stock market on March 5th, 2009 during one of the worst financial crises in history I’ve received quite a few emails from people that read my post at “The Elementary Educator” blog. They seem to be impressed.

I’ve only brought it up in relation to “Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay” because it’s been my passion for both teaching and studying patterns that has led to the creation and effectiveness of this writing program, as well as being able to see things clearly when our country was in a time of crises.

The “A, B, C Sentence” in Pattern Based Writing is directly connected to one of the most famous of all patterns in the stock market which is called an “A, B, C Patten.” The A, B, C Pattern simply lets you see things clearly. I wanted to be able to make my students be able to see things clearly in their writing, and the “A, B, C Sentence” worked like nothing I had ever seen before.

I bring it up because… I want people who are considering “Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay” to know that this is a truly unique writing program that gets amazing results. It’s not what you think… and it works better than you can imagine.

When I made the post on “The Elementary Educator” blog, I had nothing to lose. If I had been wrong, who would have blamed me? But it turns out that depending on what market you look at it was within ONE or TWO days from the actual bottom.  This means ONE or TWO days from the bottom of a financial crisis that had been going on for 1 ½ years!

I’m not in the habit of making predictions, and that will likely be my “prediction of a lifetime.” Also please note that in my prediction I use the word “probably” and “probability” quite a bit. I didn’t “know,” but I felt so strongly that this was the very bottom that I knew I should put it in writing.

Basically… I’m a teacher… and I’ve created a writing program that helps kids visualize an entire essay in their mind before they even start writing.

How I Made My Call for a Market Bottom and a Brighter Future

You can find my market prediction by doing a Google search for “Paul Barger One Teacher’s Prediction.” I wrote this prediction on another teacher’s blog (mrpullen.wordpress.com) in response to their rather bleak prediction. (Scroll to the bottom of their page where I added my comment to their blog.)

For me, their bleak prediction was the first piece of the puzzle. As the weeks passed I could see continued pieces of the pattern coming together. Finally, I was quite sure that “this is the bottom,” so I went on record.

A Little Bit about Patterns

Patterns help you see and understand what is going on. Here are my favorite two examples of what I would call the power of patterns.

In the movie “A Beautiful Mind” there is a part where he looks up and points out all the beautiful patterns shining in the night sky. Most people think, “How great it would be to see the world that way! What a gift!” The truth is we all have the ability to see the world that way. We all have a beautiful mind…

By the end of the Pattern Based Writing program, students have the ability to see writing just the way that the character in the movie was able to look up at the stars and see the constellations. It’s all clear. They understand what they are doing, and where they are going in their writing. Total control makes writing fun!  

Blink- The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

In the book “Blink- The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” the author, Malcolm Gladwell’s basic premise is about how our first impressions and our intuitions are actually our amazing and natural gift of being able to instantly decode and process patterns.

Pattern Based Writing leads to writing in an organized and beautiful nature without really even having to think about it. It’s kind of like what Malcolm Gladwell describes.

It’s like teaching an artist some patterns, and then watching them create new patterns using those patterns. (Pattern Based Writing does not lead to “rote writing.” It actually gives students the control to do to their writing what Picasso did to his painting. And they do!)

Patterns in Language and the Stock Market

I learned patterns in both NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and the patterns in the stock market. Between these two subjects I’ve studied just about every single kind of pattern found in science, nature, art, and in language.

I’ve read LOTS of books on patterns in the stock market and in NLP. (I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many…) NLP is VERY pattern intensive and is most famously known for it’s in depth study of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles. I have to admit that I was shocked to find the kinds of advanced language patterns found (and hidden) in language.

It’s quite amazing that you can tell by listening to the words a person is using if they are in a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learning mode.

Language is amazing, and you can be sure that CEO’s, lawyers, and presidents have long SEEN the power of language!

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is the first step in opening up a new universe for students and teachers!

Stock Market Prediction

Along with organization, ideas are the other trait that Paul B. Diederich felt deserved greater weight.

Good prewriting skills lead to good ideas. If students think the first idea that pops into their head is a good idea, it’s unlikely they will become effective writers or take great pride in their writing. Students need to understand that the first ideas that pop into their heads are just the tip of the iceberg.

Mass idea generation through prewriting makes this kind of thinking a habit. It’s not so much that students (and adults) must do prewriting for every single assignment they have, but they must be aware that they are not choosing from among just a few ideas, but that they are choosing from an unlimited number of possible ideas.

With the prewriting system I use students get in the habit of generating at least 80 unique ideas over a range of main ideas in anywhere between 5-10 minutes.

Developing the Habit of Exploring Endless Possibilities Before You Start Writing

I have a background in acting and the theater. A lot of actors will tell you that if you want to learn to act, you learn by doing theater. Acting classes are a poor substitute for real acting in the theater. Here’s why.

In acting classes you might rehearse a scene a few times, and you might perform the scene a few times. That’s it. You’re done. You think you have taken the part as far as you can.

However in the theater, you rehearse a part 4-5 days a week for 5 weeks. By opening night you have found layer upon layer that before lay hidden.

Six weeks later on closing night, you are almost embarrassed at how little you had understood both the character and the play on opening night. You realize how even on opening night you had just scratched the surface in understanding both the play and your character.

The next play you are in, right from the beginning you know that there are many, many layers that you can’t see at the moment. You know you don’t understand either the big picture or the subtle nuances that you will soon come to understand.

As such, you know to continuously seek new ideas and new interpretations. You learn new methods and new tricks for discovering different ways to uncover the hidden and complex possibilities that lay hidden in the words.

With each additional play you continue to learn how to more quickly uncover all the hidden possibilities. You learn that there are endless possibilities, some of which you will discover early, and some you will discover when it’s too late. But you get better and better, and faster and faster!

The Skill of Exploring All the Possibilities

Generating ideas is not something students should have a problem with. If they do have a problem coming up with lots and lots of ideas, it is most likely because they are not in the habit of coming up with LOTS and LOTS of ideas.

Students need to discover the “big picture” and the “fine details” early in the writing process. Don’t wait until it’s time to edit/revise to make it better. An effective prewriting system makes it better before students even start writing!

Frustrations with Prewriting

I have explored and experimented with many, many prewriting systems over the years. There are lots and lots of very creative prewriting ideas. Most of these prewriting ideas are not practical for students to use as a consistent prewriting system.

Graphic organizers are great. They are like math manipulatives for writing. However, they are rarely a practical resource that will help students get the job done. In fact, they are often more of a distraction than a problem solver. Students need a prewriting system that they can count on when they have work to get done.

Here are Eight Qualities of an Excellent Prewriting System:

1.      Quick, useful, repeatable, and practical.

2.      Improves students writing (I’ve seen prewriting systems that actually make children write worse!)

3.      A skill students can use and will use to get started writing and when they are stuck in their writing. (If the prewriting system is too complicated, students won’t use it. The prewriting system needs to be so accessible that students will naturally use it when they are stuck.)

4.      Will not distract children or prevent children from starting the “real writing.” The real writing is the part that people are going to read and for which they will be graded. (Some prewriting systems can be like an art project and prevent students from getting started on the real writing. They are fun and interesting, but not useful for everyday assignments.)

5.      Provides an opportunity for mass idea generation. (More ideas to choose from means better ideas get written on the paper.)

6.      Is easy for students to connect their prewriting to the actual writing. (There is an art to connecting prewriting to the actual writing. This art needs to be built into the prewriting system.)

7.      Helps students learn how to see both the “big picture” and the “fine details” of their subject or story.

8.      Student created. If the teacher has to “pass it out” it is not practical, and likely not allowed in many testing situations. As well, the student will not develop the self-reliance for organizing their own writing.

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay has a prewriting system which gets students in the habit of generating at least 80 unique ideas over a range of main ideas in anywhere from 5-10 minutes.