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the writing teacher s strategy guide for more information visit ttms.org ull n f io vers by steve peha

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the best way to teach is the way that makes sense to you your kids and your community www.ttms.org

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 table of contents i don t know what to write about the topic t-chart strategy a great way to guide students in choosing good topics also additional strategies for topic selection in research writing 5 20 28 33 38 47 52 58 it s just a matter of opinion it s all in the details a game of show and tell a sequence of events the picture worth a thousand words the three key ingredients the action-feelings-setting strategy a great tool for helping writers describe a scene in a narrative with effective detail also makes a great introduction to paragraph writing the what-why-how strategy a powerful tool for helping students explain their thinking and support logical arguments perfect for expository and persuasive writing the idea-details strategy a very simple strategy that is much more powerful than it looks helps writers add detail but can also be used to create entire pieces of writing all by itself the tell-show strategy a great strategy for adding rich descriptive detail helps writers bring a strong visual component to their work the transition-action-details strategy a perfect strategy for narrative sequencing also works well for summaries and procedural writing of all kinds including step-by-step instructions the draw-label-caption strategy a great strategy for writers of all ability levels helps students capture a scene and focus on important details the definition of writing the content-purpose-audience strategy a powerful comprehensive strategy writers can use to plan an entire piece or to identify areas in a draft that need revision.

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4 9 10 11 toc continued great beginnings effective lead strategies a large collection of strategies for helping students produce great beginnings includes samples of more than 25 types of leads 74 90 104 happy endings effective ending strategies a set of excellent strategies for creating effective endings many authentic samples from student work little things that make a big difference a variety of strategies a brief look at several small but important topics including sharing and conferencing how to beat writer s block and the five big questions © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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i don t know what to write about it s the worst feeling in the world you know you re supposed to be writing your teacher just told you to get started but where do you start finding a good topic is one of the hardest parts of learning to write and unfortunately every writer runs into it right at the beginning even if you do come up with a good topic for today what about tomorrow and the next day and the next are you going to have to struggle like this every time a teacher asks you to write probably no matter how many times you ve come up with good topics before you end up with the very same problem the next time you start a piece and that s why you need strategies that will always give you many good topics to choose from one approach that seems to work well for many writers is the topic t-chart strategy the idea is to make two lists at the same time based on opposites here are some examples that will help you find something good to write about · like-hate things you like and things you hate · typical-unusual typical experiences that happen almost every day and unusual experiences that have happened only once or twice in your entire life · fun-have to things you do for fun and things you do because you have to · regret-proud of things you regret and things you are proud of you can use these lists over and over you can even use them in different classes and in different grades try a couple of the ones suggested here or make up your own in just a few minutes you ll have enough topics to last a whole year 1 5 © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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6 like-hate t-chart good writing comes from strong feelings and strong feelings come from things we like and things we hate make a list of the things you really like and the things you really hate no people on the hate list please if you re honest about it each topic will be something you have a lot to write about things i really like a lot think about your absolute favorites like things i really can t stand no people please hate © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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typical-unusual t-chart good writing comes from life experience and the life experiences we know best are the typical things we do every day and the unusual things that happen to us maybe only once or twice in our entire lives either way these kinds of topics are perfect things to write about 7 typical regular everyday experiences sometimes the little things in life make the best topics for writing unusual out-of-the-ordinary experiences think of the highs and lows in your life the times that aren t like all the others © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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8 like pizza the internet ice cream music reading my cat harry potter soccer shopping candy examples hate all vegetables homework science spelling tests getting dressed up cleaning my room rainy days being bored bowling golf on tv typical waking up school dinner practice trumpet soccer watching tv visiting grandma feeding my cat unusual bike accident chicken pox broke my arm disneyland getting my 1st bike met mia hamm saw wynton marsalis getting presents getting grounded fun out to dinner movies holidays staying up late rollerblading halloween talk on phone soccer camp singing have to get my hair cut getting up early wash the dishes babysit brother get good grades practice scales regret not getting wynton marsalis s autograph missing my soccer tournament cuz i got grounded being mean to my brother sometimes proud of my soccer trophy in 4th grade when i got all a s when i saved my cat from that big dog i m good at math © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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t-chart tips save your t-charts each topic t-chart you create will have many different topics on it most people come up with 10-20 each time they do it if you save your charts you ll always have lists of ideas to go back to when it s time to write by making and saving several different lists you can generate enough topics to last an entire school year this is great for you but it s even better for your teacher if there s one thing teachers dread it s hearing their students complain about not having anything to write about pick only the best topics not every topic that shows up on a topic t-chart is worth writing about don t forget the three rules of topic picking 1 pick topics you know a lot about you can t write well about something if you don t know much about it 2 pick topics you have strong feelings about if you don t care about the topic your audience won t care about it either and 3 pick topics that are appropriate for your audience know who you re writing for and how to write to them in a way that will make them feel comfortable and respected every topic you pick to write about whether it s on a topic t-chart or not must meet all three of these criteria putting something on both sides of the same chart is it possible to really like and really hate something at the same time yes it is for example i really like teaching it s incredibly rewarding for me to help kids learn but sometimes when the kids are acting up and i can t control the class i feel like teaching is the worst possible thing i could be doing often when something is really important to us we have many different and even conflicting feelings about it that s just human nature it s also the nature of a great topic if you feel like you want to put the same thing on both sides of a topic t-chart do it and then start writing about it topics that show up on both sides of the same chart are often the best topics we come up with be specific if you can you may write down that you like movies that s a great topic but you ll probably get a better piece out of it if you think more specifically for example if you thought about which kinds of movies you liked best and wrote down action movies your writing would probably be more detailed and more focused you can also use this approach to get more topics out of a single choice if you put down sports for example you might be able to come up with several different sports and write a different piece about each one writing about the same topic more than once can you write about the same topic more than once of course you can professional writers do it all the time however they don t just write the same piece over and over because their readers would get bored and frustrated if they had to read the same thing all the time if you pick the same topic more than once you need to write a different piece about it each time also because you re still learning to write it s better for you to try many different topics instead of picking the same ones all the time however all writers have their specialties the topics they like writing about best and you should have yours too 9 © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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10 what s a good idea some ideas are better than others just because it s on a list you made doesn t mean it s necessarily great thing to write about sometimes you may want to consider things a bit more carefully before you start writing to help you with that i ve come up with a series of questions you can ask yourself about any topic you choose how you answer these questions may help you discover that some of your topics are better than others is the topic something you have strong feelings about how much writers care about their topic is probably the strongest predictor of success with the finished piece your feelings about the topic affect your writing in three ways 1 the amount of effort of you put in will be greater if you care about your topic and this extra effort will probably lead you to produce better work 2 your voice will be stronger if you care about the topic voice is the personal quality in a piece of writing it s how your personality shapes the piece in ways that make it different from anyone else s it s also the aspect of your writing that will be most interesting to the majority of your readers 3 you ll have a lot more fun writing a piece if you care about the topic the work will go faster and be more enjoyable is the topic something you know a lot about writing is really two activities wrapped up into one the first activity involves coming up with the ideas you plan to write about the second involves writing those ideas down in ways that are interesting and understandable to your readers the simple truth is that you can t do the second if you haven t figured out the first if you don t know a lot about your topic you have two choices 1 you can do some research and learn more about it or 2 you can pick something different to work on that you know more about is the topic something you can describe in great detail details are the heart of any good piece of writing details are also what make your writing different from anyone else s without good details most pieces are boring part of knowing a lot about your topic is knowing the little things about it that your readers probably don t know is the topic something your audience will be interested in before you can answer this question you have to know who you re writing for in school your audience usually consists of the other students in your class plus the teacher but often we write for wider audiences too in either case you have to know who your audience is and why they might be interested in the topic you ve chosen to write about is the topic something your audience will feel was worth reading your readers have to expend time and effort to read your writing what do you have to say to them about your topic that will keep them reading all the way to the end and make them feel like they got their money s worth when they get there © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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do you have a good idea feelings knowledge details 11 what are those feelings how will you communicate them to your reader is there an important detail you want to emphasize so your reader will understand exactly how you feel what are the main things you want to cover what s the most important part of your piece what s the one most important thing you want your audience to know about your topic what are some of the important details of your topic why are these details important how do these details help the reader understand your message interest value who is your audience why will they be interested in your topic what will interest them most what does your audience need to know to understand and enjoy your piece what will your audience get from reading your piece will your audience learn something new what will make your audience want to follow your piece all the way to the end © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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12 choosing topics for research way back when i was your age i had to do many research papers they were without exception awful pieces of writing i had topics i didn t like or didn t know much about i didn t know what doing research really meant i thought it had something to do with copying things out of encyclopedias and changing the words around and i certainly didn t know very much about writing my experience with research in school was i think typical of many students even today i did state reports country reports animal reports and famous people reports i didn t enjoy it i don t remember the information and i never again used the skills i acquired the whole process didn t make a lot of sense to me and i never felt that i was learning very much now as an adult i find myself engaged in research of one kind or another all the time at the moment for example i have two projects going in one i am reading several books about the brain and memory so i can help kids retain more of what they study in the other project i am learning about building complex interactive web sites this is more like the kind of research people do for their jobs in fact that s why i m researching these topics so i can do some new things in my work it s interesting for me to note that neither of these projects will require me to write a report they will both require however the creation of something tangible in one case new teaching materials in the other a web site research always has some kind of output some kind of finished product that the researcher has to be responsible for but written reports of the kind we do in school are only one way to present our results for me the allure of research revolves around problem solving as i learn about how research is done in the world i find this to be a consistent theme at the root of it all is human curiosity the need to know creates the problem the act of research seeks to solve we all need to research the things we re curious about when i went to school research involved the gathering up of facts and the presentation of those facts to the teacher in the form of a written report since the facts i gathered were already known and since neither i nor my teacher had much interest in knowing them the exercise was meaningless in the world outside of school it isn t just the facts that count facts are an important part but not the whole it is the meaning of the facts that makes the work worthwhile and the learning long lasting and that only happens when we re solving problems we care about and satisfying our curiosity © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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the six principles of research a matter of principles few people get through their entire lives without doing some research even if you manage to avoid it in school you ll undoubtedly be faced with it in your adult life so if you re going to do research in school you might as well do it the way people do it in the real world then even if you don t like it you ll still get an introduction in something valuable in the real world research follows a set of six principles these principles define what research is how it should be done and how it is evaluated even if you don t learn much doing research in school you can still learn these principles knowing them will serve you well in your adult life outside of school principal #1 the researcher is an expert in the field we don t ask dentists to research industrial manufacturing methods we don t ask accountants to study the human genome and we don t ask graphic artists for their analysis of the economy researchers research the things they know best you may not feel like a true expert in anything but you do have specific knowledge in many areas things you like things you do for fun things you are interested in etc your home and family situations may also be helpful when doing research in school you don t have to be the best expert in the world you just have to know more about something than your audience does regardless of how much you think you may or may not know about things you must do your work in an area you are familiar with just like real researchers principal #2 the topic is narrow and manageable most research has a very narrow focus there aren t many people writing comprehensive histories of europe or complete biographies of famous people the reason for this is the time involved it takes years even decades to write the history of an entire country or the biography of a famous person and most school kids don t have that kind of time on their hands finding an appropriately narrow topic takes a bit of work it might even take several days but this is time well spent because if you settle on a topic that is too broad it is likely that your research will take too long and that your writing will be of poor quality to help kids find just the right topic i tell them to first pick something that matches a personal interest then we dig deeper and deeper into that topic to find possible sub-topics we keep digging until we find something that seems just right sometimes the process looks like we re drilling down the levels of an outline sports baseball mariners ichiro japanese players coming to america now here s a topic that might be specific enough for us to work with we started with sports and from there we had to dig down four more levels before we came to something small and focused this is not uncommon starting from a general interest you may have to dig down five or six levels or more before you find something small enough that you ll be able to research thoroughly and write about well in the short time you ll have to do your work 13 © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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14 six research principles cont principle #3 the research answers specific questions the best research answers very specific questions sometimes only one how does a drug inhibit the spread of cancer how can a company reduce the cost of a product what were the causes of the great depression how do i create teaching materials that help kids remember what they learn how do i build a really cool interactive website etc so after we find an appropriately narrow topic we try to develop specific research questions that go with it how many japanese players are in the major leagues how do they perform relative to other players why are japanese players coming to the major leagues now instead of long ago and so on we may even come up with questions that lead the research in a slightly different direction how have the events of september 11th affected the desire of foreign players to come to this country principal #4 the audience is well defined research wouldn t be done if someone wasn t interested in it knowing who that someone is and the nature of their interest helps researchers focus their efforts on the right questions and the best presentation of the answers in most cases you ll be doing your research for your peers but you may come up with different audiences like your family or other people in your community principal #5 neither author nor audience knows the result of the research researchers don t research questions they already know the answers to nor do they research things their audience already knows if you presented something you already knew no research would be involved if the information you presented was already known to your audience there would be no need to present it this just means that you may need to do a little research on your audience before you get too far into researching your topic ask people what they know already about your topic and what they would like to know next principal #6 presentation matches purpose to reach their audience most effectively researchers use a variety of methods to present their results sometimes results are written in papers but often they are presented in some kind of talk with handouts slides or other props sometimes researchers express their results in working models more and more research results are presented in hypertext documents on the web researchers do their research for specific purposes and those purposes often have to do with how they want their information to be used it is appropriate to present research in written form when we need to reach people who cannot hear us speak or who may need to use our written word as evidence to support their own research we may reach our audience more effectively however if we make an oral presentation if we intend our research to prove a particular point or solve a tangible problem we may want to present a model of some kind presenting our research on the internet is a great way to reach larger audiences and to display our results in an interactive format how you decide to present your results will influence the information you gather and the way you organize it for your audience © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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when you can t choose choosing good topics when there is no choice in an ideal world you would get to work with any topics you wanted to work with and you could carefully avoid topics you weren t interested in but school is far from an ideal world there s all this curriculum for example all these subject areas you re supposed to study whether you want to learn about them or not when it comes to research in specific subject areas like social studies and science most kids find themselves at a disadvantage right from the start because they get stuck with unworkable topics in 7th grade my social studies teacher told each of us to pick a different country because we knew little about our subjects and because our teacher s requirements were so broad he required us to cover history politics economy culture geography etc most of us copied or paraphrased information from encyclopedias there really wasn t much else we could do given how little we knew about our topics and how much we were supposed to research about them so what will you do the next time you re asked to do a research project on something you don t know very much about or don t have much interest in you ll have to get creative and try to find some meaningful connections between things you know from your own life and things your teachers want you to study topic equations the best research is always done by researchers who are passionate about their topics this passion typically comes from a strong personal connection between the researcher and the topic being researched i like to think of that connection in terms of a mathematical equation area of interest area of study possible research topic the first thing to do is make lists of things in which you have an interest the lists i use most often with students are things i like things i do for fun things i care about and things i m interested in you can make up your own lists if you like but these work well for me once you have your lists the trick is to find connections between certain items and the subject area you are studying for example if one of the things i like is the tv show star trek and we re studying 20th century u.s history then doing research on the space program might be perfect for me if we re studying ancient rome however i might not be able to make such an easy connection with that topic so i ll have to think about in a different way or pick another item on my list and try to make a different connection picking research topics in traditional school subject areas using the topic equation approach is not easy it takes some time some thought some creativity and even a little luck but the effort is worthwhile when you have a topic that is appropriately defined and connected to something you understand and care about you have more fun your learning increases and you do better work 15 © 1995-2003 by steve peha for more information or additional teaching materials please contact teaching that makes sense inc · e-mail stevepeha@ttms.org · web www.ttms.org

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