Writing Workshop Session 4 (Research-Based Information Writing)

Structure Sets You Free

Using Prior Knowledge to Flash-Draft Essays

Connection: Tell a story about your own education to illustrate the paradoxical point that structure sets writes fee.

Page 33

Today I want to remind you that writers often write an entire essay in a flash.  To do this, it usually is important to settle on a structure,  on a plan, beforehand.  Writers can turn a box-and-bullets outline into fleshed-out paragraphs in short order.


Teaching and Active Engagement
Together we are going to plan an essay based on my insights about the overall topic.  

Set up a box-and-bullet plan

Teen activists get support in different ways

• some teen activist get help from adults
• some teen activist get help from other kids
• a few teen activists rely only on themselves for support

If you haven't made a box and bullet outline for yourself make one now.

Once writers have planned the structure for an essay, get them to tell a partner their point and how they will elaborate on each, and then have them write.  

Read par of your flash draft on page 34-35

After they have writing for awhile...

Link: Get out of the way and let kids write, reminding them of some pointers.

• Write in paragraphs 
• Cite examples from the text, quoting parts of the text
• Be sure to give several pieces of evidence for a point
• Once you included evidence, reflect about the ways that evidence supports your point.

Keep Writing!!!

Share: Have students swap essays with a teammate and find moves to "borrow" and offer feedback from improvement.  

Homework: Remember the big picture.  Once reason we study teammates' writing is to make our own work better.  Tonight, spend some time reflecting in your notebooks.  Turn your partner's feedback into a few writing goals for yourself.  Like, if you partner helped you write fancier transitions, you might turn that into a goal.  You don't need 10 or 20! Just a short list-say, 3- is a helpful way to turn a tip into a goal to continue reaching for every time you write.