When you teach multi-paragraph writing effectively, your students begin to write in an organized and natural multi-paragraph form in all of their daily writing across the curriculum. Furthermore, when it’s time for a writing assessment, your students easily address the writing prompt and create an effective and natural whole composition.
To be clear, this exciting writing achievement does not happen in a day. And for some teachers, it doesn’t happen at all. Unfortunately, some teachers never master teaching multi-paragraph writing. But today is a new beginning: We will examine five problem areas that will help teachers navigate the murky waters of teaching multi-paragraph writing.
» Problem Area 1: The Real Goal is to Create Organized, Natural, and Effective Multi-Paragraph Writers
» Problem Area 2: The Awkward Stage
» Problem Area 3: Sentence Structure
» Problem Area 4: Stragglers
» Problem Area 5: Targeting Writing Assessments While Teaching Multi-Paragraph Writing
Problem Area 1: The Real Goal is to Create Organized, Natural, and Effective Multi-Paragraph Writers
The first problem that teachers face in teaching multi-paragraph writing is that they don’t understand the truth about multi-paragraph writing. What do you see when you open up a newspaper, magazine, textbook, or novel? You see multi-paragraph writing. Do all the paragraphs look like perfectly formed building blocks? No. Every paragraph is unique. Is that what you are teaching your students to do?
Teaching single “isolated paragraphs” is relatively easy. Unfortunately, we don’t create effective multi-paragraph compositions one building block at a time. Multi-paragraph writing is a process of dividing a WHOLE TOPIC into important and interesting PARAGRAPH-SIZE TOPICS.
The truth, and I mean the real truth, is that we do this dividing at every single stage of the writing process. We do it while we prewrite, we do it while we write, and we do it while we rewrite. That’s why we call it the writing process! The real writing process is recursive, which means it’s round and round until we get things right.
Most teachers know that a paragraph must have unity. Put simply, a paragraph must address one topic, as represented by the mythical topic sentence. But in addition to that, every whole composition must also have unity. Put simply, every whole composition must also address one topic, as represented by the thesis statement or controlling idea. This means that in multi-paragraph writing 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 must equal a BIGGER 1. In other words, all of the paragraphs must work together and play a role in communicating a single complete message.
If a paragraph in a whole composition is a building block, then each building block is a different kind of block. Although some blocks may be quite similar, other blocks will be very different. Regardless, they all must fit seamlessly together to form a whole.
Please note that teachers do not need to explain all of this to their beginning or struggling multi-paragraph writers. Truthfully, it would probably confuse them. However, teachers do need to understand this so that they can effectively guide their students. If teachers have an incorrect and dogmatic belief structure about multi-paragraph writing, they are going to struggle with creating naturally effective writers.
What is a paragraph in multi-paragraph writing? To answer that question, open up a newspaper, magazine, textbook, or novel and examine the paragraphs. The truth is on the page!
Problem Area 2: The Awkward Stage
The move from writing single paragraphs to multi-paragraph writing has historically been an awkward stage for student writers. As discussed above, students have probably learned things about “isolated paragraphs” that are not true in multi-paragraph writing. It will take a little practice and time to create organized, natural, and effective multi-paragraph writing. Therefore, teachers must understand this awkward stage and be willing to work through it.
To keep track of your students’ progress, I encourage all teachers to use this Timed Writing System. It’s an apples-to-apples comparison system that lets you (and your students) know the truth about their writing progress. After all, you want to make sure that you don’t stay stuck in this awkward stage, and this Timed Writing System will be a factual recording of your students’ progress.
If your students make progress, this Timed Writing System is highly motivating! And if you use Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay to teach multi-paragraph writing, your students will make progress. In fact, you will get twice the results in half the time. Additionally, you will create smiles on your students’ faces while you do so. Your students will soon be looking at their timed writings and cheering, “I get it! I can’t even read what I was writing before!”
In many of life’s endeavors, if one wishes to reach new heights, one must work through an awkward stage. Many years ago, Tiger Woods, the champion golfer, changed his golf swing. His game fell apart completely, and there was a massive uproar from those who questioned his decision. However, Tiger Woods was doing what he knew he must do to get to the next level. He knew that genuine long-term improvement sometimes comes at a short-term cost. He knew that he may have to take a few steps back and work through an awkward stage, but that it would pay off in the long run. It did!
Multi-paragraph writing success is an essential skill, so teachers must work through this awkward stage. To create organized and natural multi-paragraph writers, it takes a bit of repetition, variety, persistence, and tenacity. But it’s worth it!
Problem Area 3: Sentence Structure
With new multi-paragraph writers, some of the writing rules that they know fly out the window when they start to write long multi-paragraph compositions. So as your students begin their multi-paragraph writing career, take a close look at their sentence structure. If you see long, stream-of-consciousness sentences, you need to address this problem. One can’t write these endlessly-long sentences and follow the rules of multi-paragraph writing at the same time. They are mutually exclusive.
You may find that some students still view writing as the expression of one long idea that goes on and on. When they are given a large chunk of time to create a multi-paragraph composition, they fall back into stream-of-consciousness writing. This problem reveals itself in long and rambling or even endless sentences.
If your students have a reasonably sound understanding of simple, compound, and complex sentences, you can probably remediate sentences with them in a traditional way. However, with some struggling students, I sometimes do the reverse. I encourage them to write simple sentences (or Frankenstein Sentences) in their timed writings. In short, how would Frankenstein say it? Well, on Saturday Night Live, Frankenstein says, “Fire bad!” Of course, I don’t ask for sentences quite that simple. After years of being taught that they must combine sentences, Frankenstein Sentences are a fun way to get students to stop believing that the writer with the longest sentence wins. With Frankenstein Sentences, students are soon in control of their sentences, and we can start moving forward again.
As long as your students are writing endlessly long, stream-of-consciousness sentences, they will struggle with multi-paragraph writing. In fact, I don’t go out of my way to encourage complicated sentences until many of my students are saying, “I get it! I can’t even read what I was writing before!” And while I would prefer not to discourage complicated sentences, sometimes this is what is needed.
To be clear, teachers can teach sentence structure alongside Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay from day one. But if you are teaching beginning multi-paragraph writers, you may want to hold off on insisting on complex sentence structure as they begin their multi-paragraph writing career. You don’t want to overwhelm or confuse your students. Keep in mind that you are probably going to need to hold your students accountable for using many of the rules of grammar, mechanics, and conventions that they have learned thus far.
In short, you may want to keep things relatively simple as your students begin their multi-paragraph career. Once your students are having some success with multi-paragraph writing, you should start working on and requiring advanced sentence structure, sentence openers, and sentence variety in their multi-paragraph writing. Keep in mind that I create competent multi-paragraph writers FAST, so I don’t feel a need to overwhelm them.
Whatever you do, take notice of how your students create their sentences in their multi-paragraph writing right from the beginning. It is a part of the internal structure that reveals what your students understand about multi-paragraph writing. If students are not in control of their sentences, they are not in control of their multi-paragraph writing.
Problem Area 4: Stragglers
If you are teaching a large class, you will have some students who don’t get multi-paragraph writing as fast as the others. Although there are many possible solutions to this problem, I outline two: 1) The Rotating Peer-Teacher System, and 2) Remediation.
Stragglers: The Rotating Peer-Teacher System: Because Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is a system and a methodology, this Peer-Teacher system is hugely beneficial. In short, I have students who get the system and method teach those who have yet to get it. I organize the stations like the diagram below, and the teachers (not the struggling students) rotate from group to group. Students who don’t get it see three (or more) different papers that are all unique and that are all written using the structure that they have learned. With this system, I create an entire class full of successful multi-paragraph writers quickly and easily.
Stragglers: Remediation: Once again, my goal is to create organized, natural, and effective multi-paragraph writers. Sometimes I end up with a couple of stragglers who need true remediation. Because Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is a system, and because I already have the copies made and ready to use, remediation is not that difficult. To create multi-paragraph success, I sometimes need these last couple stragglers to simplify their sentences. Shortly thereafter, these students are saying, “Ohh! I get it! I finally get it!”
Problem Area 5: Targeting Writing Assessments While Teaching Multi-Paragraph Writing
Practicing for a writing assessment requires the right kind of practice. I know teachers who had purchased the program a month or so before a writing assessment and wrote back that they were thrilled with the results. Additionally, every teacher I have communicated with about writing assessments says the program helped them greatly.
But still, I have some advice based on experience. Once, on my off-track vacation time, I took over a sixth-grade class that had no teacher. Like all classes in this situation, chaos ruled in every aspect, including in the students’ writing. Regardless, I quickly brought organization to their multi-paragraph writing, and even these unruly students were thrilled. “I can’t even read what I was writing before!”
Suddenly, I find out these kids have a district writing assessment. I wasn’t particularly worried, but we were still at a stage where heads were spinning a bit. Since it was a district writing assessment, the writing was teacher-graded at an in-service. In short, I saw all of the writing in all of the sixth-grade classes, along with my own class. When looking at the piles of writing, my students’ writing stood out as the most organized multi-paragraph writing.
Unfortunately, my students did not address all aspects of the writing prompt. Every student wrote about the prompt topic, but that is not enough. Students must accurately and clearly address the writing prompt, and my students didn’t. It was sad for me to see, and everyone could see that my students had not addressed the prompt. They didn’t score well—and I gave the score.
Well, Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay grew from that experience, and so did I. The first thing I do is tell you this story, with the hope that you will learn from it. I also added patterns and resources so that you can target your writing assessment properly.
1. Released Writing Prompts for State Testing
2. Pattern 13: Chunking Down Directions Correctly: Use THEIR Words
3. Pattern 14: Chunking Down Directions Correctly: Create a Rubric Checklist
4. Appendix K: Writing Prompt Structure and Keywords for State Writing Tests
Steven Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, tells a story around the premise that if you want to harvest in the fall, you will have needed to plant in the spring and have tended to the fields during the summer. This is a time-management warning. Understand your unique timeline so you can focus on what is essential. As an example, if you have purchased the program because you have a writing assessment six weeks out, you must approach the program with that in mind. To some degree, you must target that writing assessment right from the start (which is not hard to do).
