Graphic Organizers as Prewriting are a Prescription for Bad Writing

Graphic Organizers aren't designed for prewriting. They are for organizing. You can't organize nothing. When we use graphic organizers to prewrite, we are prescribing thought and ideas. "Fill our your graphic organizer, boys and girls." And it almost always turns out badly. You can't tell people what to think or say. No wonder kids stare blankly at this workshit masquerading as a graphic organizer and realize they have nothing to say.

Recently, I read about a hundred 4th grade STAAR essays. Except for 4 kids who didn't do what they were taught, the rest of them started with a two-sentence intro (most of them beginning with a question or alliteration), followed by three paragraphs beginning with First, Next or Last, and ended with an "In conclusion" paragraph that repeated the second sentence in the introduction.

There was pretty much nothing in the paragraphs except for undeveloped ideas and repetition. The paragraphs didn't say anything. Nothing was developed. Stuff repeated. Like, over and over. Badly. None of the ideas added to the thesis. The sentences just listed and repeated stuff we already heard. You know what I mean?

Let me repeat something purposefully as a contrast: graphic organizers used for prewriting are prescriptions for organizing nothing. You don't need a graphic organizer until you have something to say and know why you need to say it. (I'd say the same thing for adding similes and metaphors, but that's another rant.)

When you know what you want to say and why you need to say it, then you make a decision about how you need to organize it. And you use multiple organizational structures to do that. The one most teachers (and one spouted by a popular "writing program") have decided to teach - first, next, last - is actually one of the worst to use when you only have a short space (26 lines) to communicate.

Recommendation:
1. Use the graphic organizer to organize only after you have used some actual prewriting strategies.
2. Teach kids how to choose the organizational structure that is the best delivery system for their audience and ideas and the writing situation.
3. Teach kids strategies to say more about each idea and how to connect the ideas in one paragraph to the other ideas in a way that connects back to the thesis.
4. Stop using a graphic organizer as a formula to bypass what it means to actually write something worth reading.