She wasn't thinking...that's why.

Wilson slams me again with practical application for the classroom:

“We can’t learn to write from following orders. That might work for memorizing multiplication tables. But to compose, we have to make an endless string of decisions. And there’s never one right decision; you’re deciding between dozens of plausible decisions every decision you make. In addition to reflecting on the reality of composing, our decision making lens supports our larger goal of preparing students to write in a more inclusive and equal democracy” (Wilson, 2018, p. 71).

Because writing is so complex, our approach to instruction and feedback for assessment of growth must be different. Wilson shared a story from Katie Wood Ray as she conferenced with a writer. She asked the student about how she started her paper, "What were you thinking?" (Ray, 2006, 59). The student couldn't answer because she wasn't thinking. She was copying the beginning from the five paragraph graphic organizer she was told to use for the prompt. The student couldn't answer because she wasn't making decisions at all. She was following orders. The result is often crappy writing that the kids can't discuss. Even worse? Kids don't realize that they should be able to have something to say about what they are doing and why.

"For writers to grow, they need lots of practice finding and developing their intentions and using them to make decisions as they write" (Wilson, 2018, 75). That means our minilessons should explicitly model how one goes about doing that. That means that the way we conference with students should pose questions that allow them to speak about how they make decisions as writers. “The purpose of a writing conference, then, isn’t for the teacher to give advice about the writing, but to invite the student’s other self to speak - and then to listen" (Wilson, 2018, 89).

We help the writer become aware of their intentions by helping them focus on the things that drive intention: feeling, impulse and meaning (Wilson, 2018). We need to make students aware that they have these to begin with. It is that awareness of intention that will drive the decision making. Here are the questions Wilson recommends. They are very similar to Carl Anderson’s Recommendations in How’s It Going. The difference is that the teacher is now purposefully conducting these “idea conferences” to help the students connect to their intentions as writers.

Assessing for Intention: Conversation Starters

1. Tell me what you're working on and how it’s going.
2. How did you get the idea for this?
3. What made you write about this?
4. What are you trying to do here?
5. How did you start this?
6. How are you feeling about this?
7. What were you thinking when you wrote this?
8. Is there anything that’s not here that you really wanted to be here?
9. Does this do what you want it to do?
10. Tell me what it was like when you were working on this.
11. Did your ideas or feelings about this essay change while you were working on it?

Ray, K. W. (2006). What are you thinking? Educational Leadership 64(2). 58-62.

Wilson, M. (2018). Reimagining writing assessment: From scales to stories. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

The Student Experience in Writing: A Moral Imperative

Yep. Still reading Maja Wilson's Reimagining Writing Assessment: From Scales to Stories.

Dewey (1938) pointed out to us several things that must be considered when we teach writing:

1.  The student's experience will determine if the student is writing because the task is interesting and meaningful or if the writing is done to comply and perform. In other words, how we go about teaching writing, assigning writing, and giving feedback to writing will predict how the student responds to writing in the future. This is well documented in Reading. If we force reading on students because we think they should read a particular text or level of text, we can pretty much ensure that they won't choose to read later for themselves. Same for writing. How many people do you know in today's world that tell you they love to write and choose to do so for fun? Consider the finger pointed. We are creating experiences with writing that don't reach the goals we say we want to reach. And these experiences live on in future writing experiences in ways that none of us can bear to read.
2.  Dewey points out that people learn from everything. Sometimes, though, they go the wrong direction. We must make sure that the experiences with writing that we promote in classrooms are not miseducative. To do that, we must find ways of gathering feedback FROM students that help us assess if our work helps students grow in the right direction. Only then, can we name those writing moves for the students and teach them how to use their intentions, audience, and relationship with the medium throughout their writing process and growth.

Wilson provides a heuristic for teachers to begin thinking about student writing processes. Applying Hattie's (2012) levels of feedback, collectively, this set of questions serve to help the teacher gather feedback about how the writer's PROCESS impacted the TASK, or product. This triangulation of motivation, process, and product requires significant interpretation by the teacher.

How are the writer’s intentions engaged throughout the writing process?

• What motivated the act of writing?
• What was the interplay between internal and external (and intrinsic and extrinsic) motivations?
• What influenced the writer’s intentions as she wrote?
• How were big and small decisions influenced by the writer’s intentions?

How does the writer use her sense of audience (and self and others, real and imagined) to make decisions throughout the writing process?

• What is the author’s relationship with readers - and her understanding of them?
• How does the writer’s relationship with her audience (self and others, real and imagined) affect her writing process, in positive and negative ways?
• How does the writer negotiate her relationship with audience (self and others, real and imagined) to solve problems, push forward, or revise?

What’s the writer’s relationship with the medium - its nature, characteristics, limitations, and possibilities?

• In what ways does the writer notice and respond to the nature of the medium?
• How does the writer struggle with the limitation of the medium - and what results from that struggle?
• How does the writer let the medium’s limitations and possibilities shape her intentions and decisions as she writes? (Wilson, 2018, p. 60)

This level of feedback seems foreign to me. I'm pretty sure I have had limited to no interactions with student papers that gets this deep. But how powerful!

Don't we need to see how the writer's intentions are coherently expresses throughout the text and the process of completing the composition? After all, it will be a flawed process the writer uses that takes the writing into incoherence.

Don't we need to see how the writer was purposefully making decisions about the audience? After all, it will be through a flawed process that the writer forgets to whom he writes and what that reader will need?

Don't we need to see how the writer manipulates the medium to fit his intentions and audience? After all, won't it be a flawed process and task level understanding that indicates a the inability to compose within the boundaries of the medium?

A return to Dewey reminds us why this approach needs more attention: the moral imperative of inclusive democracy. The way we evaluate student writing must embody the values of growth as opposed to rank division of our society. Wilson reminds us that the core of writing well lives in our decision-making capacity. Our assessment and feedback must inspire, even require, writers who are "active and informed decision makers" (Wilson, 2018, p. 52).

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. West Lafayette, IN: Kappa Delta Pi

Hattie, J. A. C. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wilson, M. (2018). Reimagining writing assessment: From scales to stories. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Intention and Audience: The Genesis of Communication

I'm still reading and thinking with Maja Wilson in Reimagining Writing Assessment : From Scales to Stories.

Intention and audience are the genesis of writing. In my own writings intention and audience are the only inspiration to compose. Is that true for school sponsored writing? Where students are told what their intentions are to be and for whom the audience is absent? When I approach student writers, am I making the assumption that they care about the topic? Do I assume they understand or visualize the audience responding to their work? So abstract.

Wilson reminds us all that meaning not only drives the form(medium) but also the desire to compose (communicate) at all. On page 58 of the text, she created a call out box that describes "A Writer's DNA: Decision-Making Relationships Between Intention, Medium, and Audience" (Wilson, 2018). I have adapted the box, maintaining her language with the italicized font to adapt this thinking for a student resource. Not only do we as teachers need to be aware of the origin of writing, but we need to help students become aware of the wellsprings of thought that can flow through their pens to paper so that others can row through the current of ideas they provide for the reader. (Recognize the reference to Gustav? "What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in!)

Again, Wilson's work is a practical application of feedback. Hattie and Timperley (2006) speak of SELF-EXTENDING Feedback. At least that's what I call it because it connects to what we teach in reading. We want students to have self-extending systems in place for decoding so that they can read increasingly complex tasks. Hattie and Timperley call this level, SELF-REGULATION, or CONDITIONAL. In other words, how does a writer evaluate and sustain the writing act for himself? How does the student "monitor his own learning process" to continue working and growing and writing (Hattie, 2012, p. 134). We have to teach writers the metacognitive awareness and executive behaviors required to give feedback to themselves.

As before, I will transform Wilson's words into an instructional tool, followed by an evaluation of the levels of feedback implied by the questions. Collectively, I believe that the questions serve as an example of how we might teach students to apply the SELF-EXTENDING levels of feeedback for themselves and their peers. 

Relationship between the writer’s intention and the medium:

• The text expresses and transforms what is in my mind.
• What do I know?
• What have I read?
• What have I seen?
• What have I felt?
• What has happened to me?
• What do I wish to happen?
• How have I used the questions above to take what is in my mind to express and transform my thoughts into marks?
• The text does not match what is in my head.
• In what ways?
• How will I respond?
• My meaning and intention change as I see what I have composed.
• In what ways?
• How will I respond? (Adapted from Wilson, 2018, p. 58)

In this first excerpt, Wilson (2018) helps create a scaffold for the writer to examine the product, or TASK, of composing as well as the PROCESS he has used do so. The what questions help the student evaluate the TASK. The HOW questions prompt the writer to evaluate the PROCESS he has used to compose that were effective as well as those PROCESSES that might need improvement with revision. By examining what has worked well, the writer can name the features that can be used in the next writing performance. By identifying areas in the composition that don't work so well, the writer is alerted to problems that might have been missed and trigger a search for more effective solutions, strategies, skills, information, etc. 

Relationship between the writer and his audience:

• I want someone else to look at the page and see what is in my mind.
• I want to know what someone else sees when they look at what I have created.
• I want to keep this for myself. (Adapted from Wilson, 2018, p. 58)

Wilson now provides a scaffold to help the writer become more explicitly aware of the impact he wishes to have on the audience - even if that audience is the writer himself/herself. Conscious awareness and attention to audience brings purpose and context to the composition. By seeking this feedback from self or others, the writer can then evaluate the impact of the product, the TASK.

Relationship between the writer’s intention, the medium, and his audience:

• I can make changes on the page to better show someone else what is in my mind.
• In what ways?
• How will I go about doing so?
• I can make changes on the page to better show myself what is in my mind.
• In what ways?
• How will I go about doing so?

Wilson ties all of the elements together with this set of questions and considerations. First, the writer must consider the TASK*. Does he have the information and skills to revise the composition? Then the writer can select from existing schema or search for more effective PROCESSES that will help improve the writing in ways that fit his audience, intentions, and medium.

*Note: In some instances, the TASK is the text/composition itself. The creation of the text is the purpose. In other instances, the TASK is the knowledge and skills required to improve the text/composition. The distinction lies in understanding that TASK level feedback is about the product. Was the product correct or not? In writing, that can be the text as a whole. It can also be the revisions and additional information.

The Horse, Fertilization, and Screws: Re-imagining Assessment FROM Writers

I'm reading Maja Wilson's Reimagining Writing Assessment: From Scales to Stories. 

While there are SO many ideas that you need to know from this book, I have happened upon some ideas that will help your teaching practice. (You should get the book to fully understand the theoretical perspectives behind these ideas, but most teachers want to go directly to the "good stuff" they can actually use in practice. Be careful, doing that turns into taking an innovative idea and doing the same old crap that didn't work in the first place. Wilson tells us it's like using a hammer to to screw a screw. "Something gets screwed, but it's not the screw" (2018, p. 26).

I'll also be combining my comments here with the concept of Hattie and Timperley's (2006) four levels of feedback. Doing so fits well with Wilson's approach because what she describes in her book is a practical application of THE element that Hattie realized is most neglected. We often think that feedback is something that we give to students. While that is powerful, that's putting the cart before the horse. It's like incubating and egg that has not been fertilized. FIRST, feedback must come FROM the learner TO the TEACHER. Then the teacher must begin to make decisions about how to make a decision about the level of feedback that can then be returned to the learner.

So, on with the horse, fertilization, and screws.

You'll have to get the book to read about the insights Wilson learned from Bob's composition. Truly brilliant. That experience led her to realize that stories "can become a tool for inquiring into a writer's development" (Wilson, 2018, 41).  By eliciting the stories of how Bob composed, Wilson identified how teachers get feedback FROM students that they can use, "forming writers even as it helps them understand them and their work" (Wilson, 2018, p. 41).

She uses the framework of story to establish a form for her inquiry and preparation to help the writer. I'll pose each section, italicizing her exact words, but reshaping them in format. (Wilson put them in paragraphs.) Then I'll follow each section with commentary on how the ideas intersect with the four levels of feedback. Wilson provides excellent questions that teachers could use to begin their thinking before working with students in a writing conference.

Setting:

• Where and when does ____ compose?
• What are the circumstances of his composition?
• Immediate
• Rhetorical
• Cultural backdrop
• How does the writer use these circumstances to cull materials, purposes, and “forms”? (Adapted from Wilson, 2018, p. 41)

I used to think about the types of feedback as different kinds of responses that the teacher could give to the student. Wilson's framework begins with setting. The teacher is gathering both TASK level and PROCESS level feedback about the writer. Wilson helps teachers examine elements of the TASK itself, the physical location and time of the act of writing. By examining the circumstances, the teacher has further specifics about the context of the task that impact the performance: the process of writing itself. In the last question, Wilson provides the teacher with a question that helps the teacher gather PROCESS level feedback from the writer about the process the writer uses to accomplish the written task.

Character:

• Who is ___ as a composer?
• What is the story of his development?
• Why does he compose?
• What are his intentions?
• What is he thinking and feeling as he composes?
• What previous experiences and relationships does he bring to bear on his composing?
• What relationships does  he foster through his composing - and his compositions? (2018, p. 41)

After the teacher has examined the setting in which the student composes, Wilson suggests that we look at who the writer is as a character. I would characterize her questions as SELF level feedback, although differently than Hattie. Hattie (2012) found associations with ineffective SELF level feedback when it was delivered as praise. As I have responded to student writing and have read about giving feedback to writers, there is always a dead level awareness that these writers are HUMAN. I must acknowledge who they are as writers in a way that is not associated with praise. Wilson offers an effective heuristic here to help us gather feedback from the writer that honors them as living and breathing people. 

Action:

• What does ____do?
• With what and with whom does he interact?
• What obstacles does he encounter?
• How does he attempt to overcome these obstacles?(Wilson, 2018, p. 41)

Now the teachers have considered the student's writing in terms of setting and character, Wilson suggests that we gather feedback about what the writer does: Action. This involves considering what the writer DOES (TASK level feedback) and HOW the writer goes about doing so (PROCESS level feedback). Wilson's first three questions prompt the teacher to gather TASK level information from the writer. The fourth question prompts the teacher to gather PROCESS level feedback from the writer. After examining the student and his/her writing in terms of a narrative, the teacher is more prepared to give feedback that has greater impact.

I'm not a big fan of conclusions, because I don't think most people read them. But I would like to reinforce two concepts here: 1. Wilson gives us tools to significantly improve how we respond to writers more productively and humanely. She shows us where we should begin. 2. Wilson's ideas work because they center on the most effective type of feedback: feedback the teacher gathers from the student. 3. And I lied. Three concepts: Teachers gather ALL of the types of feedback mentioned in Hattie's studies. Developing a teacher's awareness of these levels to consider should help the teacher make better decisions about how to help writers grow and thrive.

Hattie, J. A. C., & Timperley, H. (2006). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.

Hattie, J. A. C. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wilson, M. (2018). Reimagining writing assessment: From scales to stories. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Never Have I Ever

My friend Ray Ann McCay posted this challenge on Facebook. I scored a one. But I'm kinda proud of that. Each one of these called up lovely memories and people that I haven't considered in quite some time.

Wouldn't this be a good writing prompt activity? Kids could write these to challenge each other? Or for other characters? Even real people in history? (<<Groan>> I bet someone writes one about Trump.)  We've all had different experiences, and this activity might be just the kind of thing to liven and encourage the classroom toward the end of the semester or the beginning of the next one. 

Now...where can I tap a maple tree? 

Finding Comfort, a Moment at a Time

This piece of writing started in a writing workshop from the blueprinting activity. Sometimes people begin something that needs to be finished. Sometimes what they write needs a place to live for a while. Here is Kristin's memorial of her sister. 

Shona,

Here is what I wrote for my sister’s death anniversary. 

My heart has never known or felt so much pain, until two years ago. 

On November 30, 2015, an essential piece was ripped from my family's lives. The dreadful event, details that followed, pain and responses, which unraveled from that moment when a worst nightmare became a reality, left me forever changed. One feels like life can be mundane and that one is just acting out the motions of the day-to-day tasks. However, the feeling of being in this abyss never quite sinks in, until a fatal tragedy sends so many on a grief stricken cycle. Nothing speaks more mundane until one is left with healing what inevitably takes one day at a time. It is unimaginative, often leaving visibility of what is to come, obscure. An endless journey of agony and euphoria felt at any given moment. When the joy arrives, I grasp it tightly, refusing to readily allow it to disperse. In the memories I am left with of her, joy is brought to the surface. At last, if only for a moment, I find hopefulness.  

Every part of my heart shatters at the thought of her departure. It yearns for just one more day with her so it can feel one shred of wholeness, just for a moment again. The emptiness and pain where only fragments of my heart remain, cry out to hear that beautiful voice again. Just one more memory I cry... 

Receptivity is still a profound struggle. I cannot receive the peace I so desperately need. The ability to overcome denial, or even the desire to, is a constant struggle. The big "A" in the grief cycle, ACCEPTANCE. I don't really want to accept anything at all actually. Why should I accept anything I wasn't prepared to live without? It is not simply an entity one's neither mind nor heart effortlessly accepts. Denial is infinite, perhaps, a necessary response in order to cope. It is as if I'm holding on to denial to prevent myself from fully feeling the depth of this loss, this reality. I don't necessarily remain in this numb state emotionally and mentally either. At times, I force myself to accept little pieces of this loss, so I know that I am still capable of feeling something. If I lock it up long enough, the reality, I eventually have to let the thoughts leak out, despite the crippling pain. The paralysis, struggles for breaths, the pain of my heart being ripped out, is therapeutic in a sense, compared to allowing the pain to sit idle in my mind, heart, and spirit. If acceptance brings me a moment of peace and is so therapeutic, why am I running from it? I often wonder if I'm afraid that acceptance will erase Kendal's memory. That really isn't a logical thought. I suppose one during grief can feel or think as they wish? I wouldn't know really, this is the first loss in my life that had brought so much pain. 

I was told to focus on what you left behind, your memories, opposed to what took you from us. How you were taken from us. A task that sounds so simple yet is more difficult for me to achieve than I would care to admit. Many memories of you are easy to retrieve; others are blurred and harder to define between reality or just my mind getting the best of me. 

I don't mean for this to be so sad, so full of pain. I set out to write about my sister, who was a gift to the world. Yet, I still struggle to express or share that gift with anyone else that isn't already aware of her impact. It is a selfish coping mechanism to hold onto her memory, what I allow my mind and heart to remember. I want to share her legacy, I am meant to do so, however I can't help but want to keep her all to myself. What was not stolen from us is held onto for dear life. Kendal was a young woman any would dream to become. She was a gift to all who knew her. Her impact on this world was so profound in such a short 22 years. She was patient, compassionate and everything I strive to be now. She had the capability of reaching anyone who seemed out of reach. She left her mark on so many before she was ever taken. I have read the journals she left behind. They are like a gift I keep on receiving. They are a way to have that connection with her again. It is almost like reaching out and touching her, embracing her in my arms, and hearing that beautiful voice again. She had a way with words and people. Her love for our Lord was so intense that it radiated in everything she was, did or said. She wanted to simply live for God as the daughter spoken in His word. She was sincere, had a heart of gold and a fire for God. I know she would never want us to feel this kind of pain. She would want us to keep going and heal. I know she is perfectly content where she is and it is where she always wanted to be, in Heaven, with our Father. 

So with that in mind, I am able to find some comfort, some relief, and if only for a moment at a time. I will see her one day again and it will be bittersweet. Until then, I cling to everything she left behind. I cling to her beautiful soul. I cherish the memories I have with her and the memories of when she was there by my side through thick and thin. In one of her journals she wrote, "Happiness isn't pleasure, its victory." Those are the very words I need to live by and hold onto. I hope I make you proud baby sister. I pray I am half the woman you were already and could have been if given more time. I will continue to tell everyone about you and hold your memories close to my heart. I will share them with my children and honor your life once my heart fully allows me to do so in this journey called grief. As you have written, I will "convict my fear, because I give it authority to be gone." I will get through this and past my fears from losing you one day. Until we meet again, I love you dear sweet sister. You are part of my heart and I cannot wait for that part to be restored. 

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2015-12-01/police-man-killed-wife-self

http://amarillo.com/obituaries/2015-12-02/kendall-elizabeth-kuehler

Test Taking Strategies for STAAR: Essay Prompt Planning

Dear Shona, 

I follow your blog and really love your thoughts and suggestions. I am reaching out to ask if you have an effective process or method for teaching teachers how to unpack the prompt page/box and stimulus with students? We have found that kids don’t use this page as a place to plan/rehearse. 

Thanks for your thoughts! 

For kids, 

XXX

Interesting. I pray every day that I can bring value and support to those who touch our kids. 

Here's what I made to think through  what I have seen high scoring campuses and teachers use to diffuse the prompt and to plan the writing. 

    I remember listening to Victoria Young talk about how they were developing these new prompts when STAAR came on line. They thought that the Read, Think, Write charge was going to be a great support for kids. They thought that adding the extra information would give kids a start on their thinking. They thought it would help kick start them with ideas that they could write about. 

    Unfortunately, they helped-us-to-death. Instead of being a support, many students get lost in this stimulus. They end up being confused. They write about what is in the box instead of what the writing charge directs them to do. 

    We also have kids that don't use the word "expository" in their daily language. No surprise there. I don't either. 

1.  Kids use a synonym that helps them remember what kind of writing they are supposed to accomplish. This is especially helpful to kids who are having to retake both English I and English II tests in the same week. I have kids write "Convince" on the Persuasive prompt for English II. 

 2. CROSS out the C***: Have kids - especially those who struggle with reading or language - cross out all the stuff they don't need.  Ignore that stuff. You don't need it. I will say, however, that I have seen some campuses tell them to use the stuff in the box as an introduction.

3. Highlight the WRITE charge. Then underline and label the parts. ALL of the 4th grade STAAR released expository prompts have two parts. This gives a GREAT clue for readers about how they might organize their paragraphs. It also tells them exactly what should be included in the essay.

2016: Part A: Tell what you like about being in 4th grade Part B: Why do you like it? 

2015: Part A: Tell what you look forward to doing Part B: Why do you want to do it? 

2014: Part A: Describe your favorite place to spend time Part B: Why is it special? 

2013: Part A: Write about your favorite time of year Part B: What makes it special to you? 

4. Make a working thesis/controlling idea. Use the language in the WRITE charge and leave a blank.

"I would like to meet ________________. (Notice that I purposefully did not add the because. I want a SIMPLE and focused idea that keeps kids thinking about the SAME idea all the way through the paragraph. Also, kids who are taught to write a three pronged thesis for 26 lines won't have room to fully develop ANY of the ideas. That strategy pretty much ensures a 5 paragraph essay and a score of a 2 at best.) 

5. Use a decision donut. (Or quicklist.) What are the possibilities that you could consider? Then decide which one you have the most to say about for both parts of the essay. Can you describe them? Do you know enough about them for a full paragraph? Can you explain why you would like to meet them in more than one sentence? What are you in the mood to write about right now? Cross out the ones you don't like and prioritize the ones you like from greatest to least. Once you decide, fill in the blank. 

Think Aloud: I could write about famous people. I don't know many of them because I live under a rock. How about Elvis? I don't really care much about that. If I don't care about that topic, then I probably won't have much to say. Not enough to fill a whole paper. Other people might write about sports, but EW! No way. I could write about people in books. Winnie the Pooh? I might have trouble coming up with the "whys" for that one. Harry Potter. Doable. I could write about real people. My favorite character in the bible was Ruth. She was so brave! In one of the student papers I read, a kid wrote about wanting to meet his grandmother who had passed. I have always wanted to know my cousin Willie better. That one kinda pulls at me. The Ruth thing sounds too serious. And I think I could share the essay with my cousin. He would like it. I'll put a star next to that one and see if I can generate enough examples, reasons, explanations, and such to fill a paper. If I can't, I'll come back and work on Harry Potter. 

6. Develop your ideas. If you start writing now, it will all be a confused mush. And you don't know if you have enough to say yet. Jot down all the things you could say for WHO you want to meet in the first half of the box. Jot down all the ideas about WHY you want to meet that person in the second half. Try to come up with 10 things. You might not use them all or even have room for them all. Some is good. More is better. And too much is just enough. You can always cut out the weakest ideas or examples later. 

7. 7. Organize your ideas. There are lots of ways to do this, but there are two main ones that writers can master as they are beginning. Since the prompt asks for two things, I can write a paragraph about each one. The first paragraph can be about who I want to meet. The second paragraph can be about why I want to meet him. That's called BLOCK format. Like things go with like things. 

(A helpful strategy also is to number the ideas you have jotted down in the order that will make the most sense to talk about them. Then you just have to start with number one, make a sentence, and move to number two. For Cousin Willie, I'd probably start out with "Up north" as number one, because the distance between us is one of the biggest reasons I don't know him. Then I'd probably put number two as "met when little" because I have actually met him. He just doesn't remember me. It's important that I get that in there because it's one of the main reasons I want to meet him. I want him to remember me! Lol.)

I can also organize in another way. I can also explain one characteristic of Willie and then match it to why that characteristic makes me want to meet him. I write a sentence about who Willie is. Then right after that, I write a sentence about why that characteristic makes me want to meet him. That's called POINT by POINT format. (Or reason followed by explanation.) Then I keep going until I have explained all the important characteristics.  

Notice: I did NOT have the kids start organizing their work FIRST. Kids who try to organize their paragraphs into a five paragraph structure end up writing in generalities and vague references. They repeat the same idea over and over. NO ONE NEEDS AN ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY UNTIL THEY HAVE IDEAS TO ORGANIZE. What people have to say dictates the structure that will be the best delivery system, NOT a formula. 

Think Aloud: I can also group my ideas together in a point by point structure. As I was generating ideas, I realized that there are some things about cousin Willie's descriptions that are connected to why I would like to meet him.

When I was brainstorming about the ideas I could use to write, I noticed some connections. Cousin Willie runs a restaurant. And I love to talk about food. I would enjoy talking about that with him. Cousin Willie posts pictures on Facebook about camping with his family. I think that would be a fun activity for us to do if we got a chance to meet. 

Then I started to notice that a lot of my other ideas were all about family. It was then that I realized that I could have 2 paragraphs - one about Willie's activities and why that makes me want to meet him; and one about the importance of family and why that calls my heart to see him. 

If I don't have room to write about both, I can pick the most powerful one. I obviously have more to say about family. I think that I can start writing about that one. 

8. Write a sentence (or more) for each idea. Reread and revise for powerful word choice. 

9. Edit and Check: Draw some check boxes on the paper. Reread your paper for spelling. Try reading it backwards -from the bottom to the top - to help you see the mistakes. Then check off the box. Now read your paper again, checking for capitalization. Check it off. And so on. 

10. Write the introduction.

11. Copy the draft to the lined paper. Add the conclusion. (Some kids will write too slowly to write a whole rough draft. You can have them highlight to group their ideas and then number the ideas for the order that they are going to write sentences. Then they just write the sentences and check off the ideas as they compose.) 

Here's a copy of the whole enchilada planning sheet: