If you’ve been following along with me for any amount of time, you know that I’m obsessed with teaching writing. After struggling with how to teach writing, and seeing so many other educators struggle with how to do it, I spent over a year figuring it out and now I’m passing one of my major a-ha’s on to you!
Here it is:
Early on in the writing process, we have to introduce text structure or make a decision about text structure.
If you wait until the middle or the end of the writing process, it’s too late!
So next time you’re teaching writing, consider this tried and tested approach:
- Brainstorm with your kids all of the information they have on the topic that they’re writing about
- Then, have them look immediately at what they’ve brainstormed and figure out which text structure would highlight that information the best
That’s the moment when you make the decision about text structure. Huge. A-ha.
For more help and tips on how to teach text structure to your students before it’s too late, check out these books:
- How to Teach Students to Think Critically About Text
- How to Teach Students to Write Informational Text
Books can be found on amazon.com or https://jackson-consulting.com/buy-stuff/