Note: This is the second in a series of five articles explaining Hands-On Process-Writing. Background on the technique can be found in the first article.
Many teachers have scuffled with their middle and high school students over the eventual organization of an expository piece. The best and easiest way to approach this process is to call the students’ attention to the thesis statement in the hopes that it may provide the clues for the rest of the paper. The thesis statement, also known as the proposition, is the main idea of an essay that tells the reader the purpose behind the piece. It needs to be a clearly written and interesting road map for the reader to be able to comprehend where the paper is heading. The thesis is the central idea of the paper. It tells the readers what the focus of the paper will be and gives a general overview of the order it will follow. Unfortunately, what we usually read is a simple restatement of the teacher’s topic for the essay. If the topic assigned were, “Discuss the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia,” most students’ introductions would include a sentence that resembles: Hamlet and Ophelia knew each other…
In this article, innovative brain-based ideas will be explored that can help bright, advanced or gifted and talented students gain some fresh perspectives by using higher-order thinking skills and abstract thinking on how to write in multiple styles and genres – including expository essays, narratives, creative, poetry, persuasive, literary analysis, cause and effect and many others.
Expository Writing and Thesis Statements
Not only do thesis statements present construction difficulties for young writers, they are also kind of frightening! Students have learned that essays contain facts, not opinions, as most students at this age are really not very comfortable sharing their humble opinions about scholarly matters with their teachers. Writing a thesis statement forces them to make an assertion; they have to take a stand on the topic. By choosing narrow details about a wide-open topic, the writer is making conscious decisions about what he or she likes, feels, and supports. There are thousands of facts about each topic; why did the writer choose these details? In composing a thesis statement, the writer is fashioning an opinion merely by stating the facts!
The key in having students draft successful thesis statements is empowering the young writers to understand that their ideas, beliefs, insights and hunches about a general topic can be stated in a very non-threatening way by writing a thoughtful thesis statement. We as teachers need to give our students the tools necessary to express themselves without fear when writing a proper essay or in any other form of written expression!
With this charge in mind, over the next set of articles a five-step procedure that appeals to students of most ages and development stages from preoperations through formal operations will be presented. It may look a bit daunting at first, but once teachers try it with their students they will be amazed how quickly they comprehend the concepts behind these webbing techniques!
Step One: Talk Before You Think…
First, assign a routine essay undertaking, such as the aforementioned, “Discuss the relationship between Shakespeare's Hamlet and Ophelia.” If there is no research work involved, skip down two paragraphs.
If there is researching involved, it is at this early point that students should do their digging. They should visit the library or surf the Internet, or follow whatever procedure your school has established for researching to collect as much data as possible on the topic. Each researched fraction of data should be written down on a separate piece of paper, or on a separate small index card. Finally, randomly spread each of these idea papers or cards across a table.
If the topic did not involve any formal researching, such as a personal reflective essay, and the student had to invent or imagine the various details about a topic, then the first step is brainstorming.
A good technique to teach students about brainstorming is to tell them to find a quiet room somewhere, turn on a tape recorder, and to say everything that pops into their minds when reflecting on the topic. Or, talk before you think. If no tape recorder is available, the student should write each idea as quickly as possible. Once the brainstorming is finished, transcribe the tape by writing each idea on a separate piece of paper, or on a separate small index card.
Another approach, which is enormously popular with students, is to have them write the ideas on one single sheet of paper, and then to use their fingers to rip the document so each idea is on its own shred of paper! Either way, randomly spread each of these idea papers or cards across a table.
While this method works in classrooms across the curriculum, we will first explore how making sense of these index cards is in the eye and mind of the individual student in the third installment of the Hands-On Process-Writing articles in Suite101.
