Paul B. Diederich’s traits model greatly influenced the Six Traits of Writing. Diederich believed that both IDEAS and ORGANIZATION deserved greater weight than the other traits. Since both are so important, prewriting becomes critical. Prewriting is the process of generating and organizing ideas.
Good prewriting skills lead to good ideas. If students assume that the first ideas that come to mind are the best, they won’t become effective writers or take pride in their writing. They must understand that their initial ideas are just the tip of the iceberg.
Mass idea generation through prewriting turns this process into a habit of thinking and awareness. While students don’t need to do prewriting for every assignment, they must understand that their initial ideas are just a starting point. To uncover their best ideas, they need many ideas.
With my prewriting system, students quickly generate at least 80 unique ideas within 5-10 minutes, covering various main ideas. This habit ensures they have plenty of ideas to choose from for their best work.
Developing the Habit of Exploring Many Ideas and Endless Possibilities Before You Start Writing
Just as prewriting is essential for developing ideas and organizing thoughts, the process of acting and rehearsing reveals deeper layers and understanding. Let me illustrate this with an analogy from my background in acting and theater. It relates to the benefits of prewriting!
Many actors believe that the best way to learn acting is by performing in the theater, as acting classes often fall short. Here’s why: In acting classes, you might rehearse and perform a scene a few times. That’s it. You think you’ve explored the character fully.
However, in theater, you rehearse a part 4-5 days a week for five weeks. By opening night, you’ve uncovered many layers that were previously hidden. Six weeks later, on closing night, you realize how much more you’ve discovered about your character and the play. You understand that even on opening night, you had only scratched the surface.
For the next play, you start with the awareness that many layers and nuances are still hidden. You know you don’t fully grasp the big picture or the subtleties you will soon understand. This awareness drives you to continuously seek new ideas and interpretations. You develop new methods for uncovering the complex possibilities hidden in the script.
With each additional play, you become quicker at uncovering these possibilities. You learn that there are endless possibilities; some are discovered early, others too late. But with each experience, you get better and faster at uncovering them.
Like an actor’s continuous exploration and discovery during rehearsals, effective prewriting allows students to dive deeper into their ideas and structure. By engaging fully in prewriting, students can uncover hidden possibilities and enhance their overall writing, much like an actor enhances their performance through thorough preparation.
The Skill of Exploring All the Possibilities
Generating ideas shouldn’t be a challenge for students. If they struggle to come up with plenty of ideas, it’s often because they haven’t developed the habit of idea generation.
Students must identify the “big picture” and the “fine details” early in the writing process. We don’t want students to wait until the editing or revising stages to improve their work. An effective prewriting system improves students’ ideas and organization before they begin writing!
Frustrations with Prewriting
Over the years, I’ve explored many prewriting systems and activities. While many of these activities are creative, they often lack practicality for consistent use across the curriculum and in daily writing.
Graphic organizers are fantastic tools—I love them! They function like math manipulatives for writing. However, they are not always practical for students to use consistently across subjects and daily tasks. In fact, they can sometimes become more of a distraction than a help. Students need a prewriting system that allows them to generate ideas, organize ideas, and complete their work quickly.
Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay has a built-in prewriting system that gets students in the habit of generating at least 80 unique ideas over a range of main ideas in 5-10 minutes.
The Eight Qualities of a Highly Effective Prewriting System
These eight qualities also describe the Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay system. In short, Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay works! Let’s take a look at this effective prewriting system.
1. Efficient and Practical: The system should be quick, useful, repeatable, and practical.
2. Enhances Writing Skills: It should improve students’ writing. Avoid systems that make writing worse.
3. User-Friendly: Students should be able to use it easily to start writing and overcome writer’s block. If it’s too complicated, they won’t use it. It should be so accessible that students naturally turn to it when they’re stuck.
4. Focuses on Real Writing: The system should not distract or prevent students from starting the main writing task—the part that will be read and graded. Avoid prewriting systems that feel like art projects and delay real writing.
5. Encourages Idea Generation: It should allow for mass idea generation, giving students more options and leading to better ideas on paper.
6. Seamless Transition to Writing: Students should find it easy to connect their prewriting to their actual writing. This connection should be an integral part of the system.
7. Broad and Detailed Perspective: The system should help students see both the big picture and fine details of their subject or story.
8. Student-Created: The system should be created by students themselves, not something handed out by teachers. This promotes self-reliance and ensures it’s practical and allowed in various testing situations.
Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay has a built-in prewriting system that gets students in the habit of generating at least 80 unique ideas over a range of main ideas in 5-10 minutes.
