The fastest, most effective way to teach clear, organized paragraph and multi-paragraph writing… Guaranteed!

Dear Teachers and Parents,

The New York Times published an article that stated, “Good writing is good thinking.” Is this something you agree with? I sure do. Unfortunately, understanding how to write well is hard for kids, especially when these two roadblocks exist:

1. Students don’t know how to organize their thoughts in their writing AND
2. Students don’t have a system for starting and finishing their writing assignments.

My name is Paul Barger and I have taught writing for the last fourteen years in both elementary school and middle school. Through trial, error, and persistence I have perfected a system that I guarantee any teacher, homeschooling parent, or concerned parent can use to bring about true writing success for their children and students, quickly and easily.

I have outlined the system below. Please take a serious look at it. It is a complete writing program that takes students sequentially and incrementally from unorganized sentences to complete essays. It does this naturally, effectively, and in a way that makes sense to elementary school and middle school students.

Who Is This Writing Program For?

• Beginning Writers – Transport your students from sentences to correctly structured essays and reports in just a few months. (Gr. 2-6)
• Remedial Writers – You will have major breakthroughs with students for whom other methods simply did not work. (Gr. 7-12 and even adults)
• Homeschool – The kind of thinking and organization that this program teaches will transform your entire curriculum.
• Kids and Adults Who Just Don’t Get It – You are not alone. If your students (or any adults you may know) don’t consistently write in beautiful paragraph form and with natural introductions and conclusions–they just don’t get it. This program will make sure that they do get it! Furthermore, it will be fun!

Mastering Essay Writing Quickly and Easily!

Why is it that so many high school and college students still struggle with the basics of paragraph form and of a complete essay? What could possibly go so wrong for so long? After all, these are both common upper-elementary school writing standards.

On the Writing Success Blog and in the Free Writing Guide found at the top of this page, along with a variety of articles, you will find a video on teaching the five-paragraph essay. What’s shocking about this video is that it is from Ashworth University and is designed for high school students. Why do soon-to-be college students need instruction on a five-paragraph essay?

The woman giving the instruction is sharp and her five-paragraph essay instruction is precise. In order to keep up with her, you will need to use organized thinking. You will need a firm understanding of how ideas are put together in order to form good communication.

This video is intended for high school students, yet many 3rd graders from the inner-city who were taught to write basic essays using Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay could easily keep up with the ideas. In fact, they would be one or two steps ahead of them.

Paragraph format and complete basic essays are not that complicated. Students simply need to understand and internalize two levels of beginning, middle, and ending:

1. Beginning, middle, and ending in the paragraphs.
2. Beginning, middle, and ending in the whole composition.

This will be achieved quickly and easily using Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay.

What Are Patterns in Writing? What Kinds of Patterns are in Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay?

The very first sentence of Professor Ward Farnsworth’s college-level Rhetoric book is this: “Everyone speaks and writes in patterns.” Should we keep that a secret from our beginning and struggling writers? No. Hearing that gives students confidence that they can master the skills of effective writing.

Many natural patterns of thought and writing exist: simile, analogy, metaphor, problem-solution, cause-effect, compare-contrast, and more. However, the most important pattern in all of writing is this: beginning, middle, and ending. We must have a beginning, middle, and ending in our whole composition and in our paragraphs. When students achieve this, they express fully-developed points and ideas in their writing—and they do so with rhythm and flow.

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is a highly effective methodology that develops this kind of organized, natural, effective multi-paragraph writing. How does it do this? Put simply, it does this through patterns of connection. In this program, it’s all connected!

The patterns in this program are unique, trademarked, and highly effective! As you will see below, the program is built around the A, B, C Sentence ™ and the Secret A, B, C Sentence™. And since every sentence ever written is one or the other, this is hardly a formula. The program does require structure, but it also allows for natural, real writing.

Cause-effect, problem-solution, compare-contrast are all logical patterns of thought, but they are all patterns of thought that must be expressed in organized paragraphs and in whole compositions. And for young and struggling writers, it’s the paragraphs and the whole compositions that are the problem. What is a paragraph? What is an introduction and a conclusion? How are paragraphs connected and related to each other? How are the introduction and conclusion connected to the other paragraphs?

The patterns and systems in Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay teach students how ideas and paragraphs are connected, along with how the stages of the writing process are connected. This program helps students discover and internalize the connections—quickly and easily. Then the “Purpose in Writing” section builds upon these skills by applying them to 14 different types of writing, including cause-effect, problem-solution, and compare-contrast.

In effect, you will teach both of these:

1. The structure that guarantees your students will do well on writing assessments.
2. The connection, rhythm, and flow of effective writing that will change the way your students feel about writing.

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay will do this quickly, easily, and in a way your students will never forget.

Writing Without Pattern: Confused and Unorganized Writing

If your students don’t like to write, or if they don’t write in nice paragraph form, it’s likely that when they read back their own writing to themselves they see one long thought, or worse yet, a long list of words. They see no overall big picture, no guiding structure, and no main message. They can’t see what is going on with their own writing. There is no pattern to it—so they feel lost in it.

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is a simple writing curriculum that guarantees your elementary and middle school students will feel truly great about the entire writing process.

Everything in this program ties together both logically and systematically. Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay brings about real understanding and not just compliance. When students read back their multi-paragraph writing, they will do so with pride and confidence. Based on my experience, that act alone changes the writing paradigm. Student writers transform into passionate authors!

The Research Shows: Teaching Grammar and Writing

In The Neglected ‘R,’ the National Commission on Writing stated two clear facts about teaching writing:

1. “Experiments over the last 50 years have shown negligible improvements in the quality of student writing as a result of grammar instruction.”
2. “Decades of research (Elly, 1979, Hillocks, 1986, Freedman, 1993, Freedman and Daiute, 2001) have shown that instructional strategies such as isolated skill drills fail to improve student writing.”

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is not a grammar program. Grammar is very important, and I do not neglect teaching it. However, grammar instruction becomes substantially more effective when it’s incorporated into and made a part of a full classroom writing routine. Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay will help you turn your grammar students into writing students. In its simplest form, here is what the research says works. It’s not rocket science.

1. Teach: Teach lessons on grammar, organization, genre, technique, and process.
2. Write: Assign meaningful writing assignments across the curriculum. Have students write often.
3. Ownership: Foster students’ ownership of their own writing. Teach students to use checklists and rubrics in order to fix and evaluate their own writing.
4. Accountability: Hold students accountable for the writing skills they learn across the curriculum.

After using Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay, teaching writing is this easy. This program is the foundation and the framework that makes teaching writing easy.

Basically, the research shows that it is very difficult to teach writing to non-writers, as non-writers don’t see why grammar and literary techniques are important. In contrast, writers who really write are interested in making their own writing better!

After you get your students writing using Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay, day by day, you will find that about half of all of your students’ grammar errors simply disappear. Half? Yes. Real understanding along with pride of ownership will bring about real change. It’s likely that your students know more grammar rules and writing rules than they choose to use.

Teach grammar, definitely, but students need to apply it in what they consider to be real writing. That’s what the research shows.

Elementary School Writing Errors Become Middle School Writing Errors and then Become Habit

Below is a list of common multi-paragraph writing errors. They exist in elementary school and then continue into middle school. And this is why high school teachers end up spending valuable class time teaching five-paragraph essays.

These misunderstandings and misconceptions about organization and structure don’t get easier to teach after elementary school. In fact, they often become harder to teach because students have been practicing writing (and thinking) the wrong way for so long that they become set in their bad habits.

Unfortunately, with more homework and increased writing expectations, many middle school students become overwhelmed with both their schoolwork and homework. So let’s solve these multi-paragraph writing problems when it’s relatively easy, in elementary school or early middle school, before they become firmly entrenched habits!

Say Goodbye to All of These Multi-Paragraph Writing Errors, Misconceptions, and Poor Writing Habits:

• Students fail to answer the essay question or don’t follow the directions. They are off topic.
• Students don’t understand what a true introduction or conclusion is.
• Students believe “paragraph form” means you simply start a new paragraph every 3-5 sentences.
• Students repeat ideas or paragraphs. The more they write, the more they repeat.
• Students don’t want to do prewriting. They don’t see the value or purpose of prewriting. They believe prewriting is a waste of time.
• Students write whatever pops into their minds. The more they write, the more they ramble.
• Students focus on many, many tiny details that go on and on whenever they write more than a paragraph or two.
• Students find it difficult to connect their prewriting to their writing. At extremes, student prewriting actually seems to prevent students from getting started on the real writing for which they will be graded.
• Students use inconsistent form within an essay. Sometimes a paragraph is about one main idea; sometimes it’s about many.
• Students use inconsistent structure from essay to essay. Sometimes they write correctly; sometimes they don’t.
• Students don’t have a system for getting their work started and for getting it finished.
• And many, many more!

Not only will you eliminate all these problems, but you will also create the skills that put your students in complete control over the paragraph, how paragraphs fit together within an essay, and the relationship between paragraphs and the introduction and conclusion. Your students will be able to organize and compose an entire multi-paragraph essay in 30 minutes or less, and it will be so good that no one will believe it is a first draft!

Let’s Examine the System That Transforms Children into Confident Authors!

Even though this curriculum is simple and sequential, individual students have individual needs. As such, I have made sure that when you are using Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay, you are never left without a resource. You have 246 pages of the following resources:

1. Student worksheets
2. Explicit diagrams
3. Step-by-step examples
4. Detailed instruction

In addition to the methodology and the resources, seven additional components and characteristics ensure your success with this writing curriculum.

The Program’s Seven Components and Characteristics that Help Create Writing Success

This methodology works! But beyond the methodology, this program helps create writing success for a variety of teachers and students, in a variety of ways, and for a variety of reasons. Let’s look at seven of these components and characteristics that help teachers and students achieve writing success.

1. Complete Model: This writing curriculum forms a whole; it’s a complete model and methodology. Each step of the methodology is either a pattern or a system. Not only are the patterns and systems made clear—but they are also clearly connected. Students quickly see that organized writing is not random. Once students understand this, their writing confidence improves. They see that they will surly become successful writers.
2. Evaluation Method: There is a built-in method of evaluation that allows teachers and students to objectively evaluate writing progress. Did the curriculum really work? Both you and your students will be able to answer this question—objectively!
3. Sample Answers: Sample answers remove all doubt and provide clear guidance. This kind of certainty powers you forward.
4. Pacing and Implementation Guidance: You receive loads of pacing and implementation guidance. Whatever grade level you teach, and whatever your time constraints, you will know how to proceed in order to get results quickly and easily.
5. Appendices: Over the years, I’ve interacted with program users and I’ve answered all the questions! Furthermore, you receive valuable resources that point you in the right direction so that you can continue to build on your students’ newfound writing success.
6. Foundation and Framework: This multi-paragraph writing model provides a foundation and framework that teachers and schools can continue to build on all year, and even year after year. It creates a shortcut and shorthand for addressing all multi-paragraph writing. This makes it easy to layer on additional skills, techniques, and strategies, while keeping student active in real writing across the curriculum.
7. Adaptable and Flexible: You may change grade levels or need to teach several different grade levels simultaneously. You may find yourself tutoring or remediating students. Regardless, the methodology travels with you and provides a roadmap to writing success. I even know of teachers who use the methodology with adult learners who need to improve their writing quickly—and it works!

You may not need every single page, resource, and pattern in order to achieve writing success, but you will have the resources available. This is a complete writing program where all the gaps have been filled.

What’s Inside of Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay?

Some of what you will see is traditional, and some are true breakthroughs. It’s the breakthroughs that make this program so effective! The breakthroughs are the reason why I put this program down on paper!

Having said that, I have used all of the program’s breakthrough concepts alongside of traditional writing vocabulary—topic sentence, main idea, paragraph, introduction, body, conclusion, and more. Students must know these terms when it’s time for state and district assessments, and I make sure they learn them and understand them!

Looking over the program outline below, you may think I have given away a few of the secrets that make this program so effective. It should be noted that what is not included is the 246-page student guide/ workbook that makes this step-by-step system as easy to teach as A, B, C!

Proven Methods and a Proven System That Works!

When it comes to children’s education, time is valuable! You have the right to know that the educational materials you are using have been tested and proven effective by real teachers and in real classrooms! As such, my credential is viewable at the “California Commission on Teacher Credentialing” website.

This is standards-based instruction, implemented in a creative way, that works with all elementary and middle school students. You will now get the results in a matter of months that you had only DREAMED of getting over the course of an entire school year! Better results and better understanding in one-third the time!

What Do Students Think?

Enthusiasm spreads like wildfire! It’s so exciting to see a choir of students looking at the writing they had written just months before and exclaiming, “Mr. Barger, I can’t even read what I had written before. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Success: My Guarantee to You

I guarantee that this program will bring about better results, faster than any writing program available for all grades 2-6, as well as when used remedially in grades 7 and above. I guarantee that all teachers, homeschooling parents, and even concerned parents will be able to implement this program and get the same results that I have gotten.

As you can see, I’m confident with what this program can do. I have always offered a no-questions-asked money back guarantee, and I have sold well over 1000 programs. Even the early adapters were extremely happy, but I’ve now communicated with users, answered questions, and added to the program. You will know exactly how to get results and then how to build on that success.

This program is not an end to writing growth. In fact, it’s intended to be a new beginning! This program will be the engine that powers your writing instruction all year long—and beyond. You will be teaching writing to students who can really write!

The Story of How this Program Came to Be

The heart of this Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay program began with a 3rd grade classroom that had experienced well over 55 teachers and substitutes throughout the school year. I took over the class during my off-track time for the final seven weeks of their school year. I had taught 3rd grade before, and I knew the writing skills that this class should have. They had none of them. Based on what I saw, it seemed to me that the entire school year had been lost.

Teaching writing had always been a passion of mine, but I was at a loss for how to get this class writing even somewhat decently. I did have a great methodology for teaching writing that worked in a normal classroom situation, but in this situation, I had to get creative. And I did! This situation forced me to think outside the box.

I came up with the the A, B, C Sentence ™ and the children’s faces lit up! Next came the Secret A, B, C Sentence ™, and the kids had an almost puzzled expression that said, “This is easy! Is it really this simple?” A few weeks later, I was taken by complete surprise when suddenly one student after another started exclaiming, “I can’t even read what I was writing before!”

I had never seen anything like it. We continued forward!

Thirty-seven days after arriving in this class, these students were able to write the best complete essays of any class I had ever taught. I insisted the principal take home the students’ before-and-after timed writings and look them over. When she came to return them, her eyes welled up as she asked, “You mean these are first drafts?!” I replied, “Yes. That’s an objective TIMED WRITING – 25-minutes from start to finish.”

Many nice words followed, but for me… the principal’s eyes had said it all.

Over the next few years, I built on and perfected the system in both elementary and middle school classrooms. Now the effectiveness of the program is bottled up within these amazing patterns and systems.

Let me say, there are struggles along the way. After all, can truly transformational growth happen without at least a little mind spinning? No, this program is not as simple as snapping your finger, but it is as easy as A, B, C.

This Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay system is the missing manual for what makes sense to kids!