Objectives:

• Gain an understanding of the Trait: Ideas
• Review a number of methods for Idea generation
• Use Idea generation in a personally meaningful way
• Score student writing using rubrics
• Practice writing analytic commentary
• Collaborate on the scoring of demonstration papers

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." - John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968)

Introduction:

Is there anything more difficult than writing about an unfamiliar topic? I'm convinced that most students feel that every topic is unfamiliar. Understanding the Ideas Trait will help us teach students how to generate ideas. When working with ideas ask these questions:

• Is the message clear?
• Is the topic narrow enough to fit the length of the piece?
• Does the purpose match the audience?
• Is the writer in command of the facts?
• Is the reader surprised by detailed observations and insights?
• Is the reader shown unusual or unique details that only the expert's eye would notice?

If the answer is yes, you have a level 5, demonstration of the Idea Trait. Your scoring practice this week will help you recognize strong ideas in writing, while the lecture will concentrate on idea generation techniques.

A key difference between assigning writing and teaching writing is to accept the responsibility for leading students through the entire process, from initial idea generation to final draft. With young writers this means guiding them to topics where they already have highly developed expertise or providing them with rich prewriting experiences that allow the acquisition of specialized knowledge. You must make time (precious time) for this essential activity.

Ideas and Writing Across the Curriculum:

Students writing in any curriculum area must have adequate understanding and facts before beginning the drafting process. The idea generating process we speak of here can be applied to more formal subject matter writing. The process of defining and narrowing a topic is essential when writing persuasive, expository, or research papers. In many disciplines this has been done with a file cards and a research approach. I suggest that, before the "cards," you use clustering or mapping techniques to check progress on research tasks. This way you can quickly access student understanding while ideas are being accumulated.

Discussions, research, experiments, videos and lectures provide information. Have students use graphic organizers to create scaffolds for their understanding. If you do this before more formal writing begins, you'll spare your students much of that familiar "anxiety" and save yourself the frustration of dealing with rote formula writing that barely delivers undeveloped ideas.

This seminar presents Traits in the context of personal experience writing. Well written personal narrative deals with the events of their lives, their personal experiences, their feelings and insights. I believe it is best to learn writing technique while working on content that students understand "in their bones". This goes with the old adage: write what you know. Once the student gains an understanding of the writing process and the 6-traits, they are better prepared to deal with the more complex tasks of writing about curriculum based content.

Here's what you do!

Before ideas can be narrowed, refined or assessed they must first be generated. This leads us to the topic for this week's Lecture: Ideas about Ideas.  

This week's readings, lecture, and activities explore Ideas and Content in depth. You will combine this new trait with Voice from last week when you do your practice scoring.

Feel free to e-mail me with questions or comments, or Post your questions to the Discussion Forum Q&A topic. I look forward to hearing your voices!