Using Tables to Help Writers (and Graders!)

 

The Brainstorm

I work with some amazing English teacher colleagues. During last year's remote learning experience, I collaborated with Tonya Buda, an 9th grade teacher, to make writing a research paper as fool-proof as possible. When teaching research writing virtually, we found our lessons to be most successful when everything was in ONE tab - students got lost when they were switching back and forth between windows with a model and their own work.  To combat this, we developed a new writing template that combined all the scaffolded supports on one screen.

This method utilizes a table with four columns, one devoted to each of the following: a section or component label, a model, an explanation, and then a blank column for students to type their own work.

Here's a link to a table for a simple three paragraph research paper in Google Docs. I'd strongly encourage you to make a copy of the Doc and reformat it to meet your OWN expectations and reflect the models you've developed for your students! 

How it Works

The "section" columnlabels each part of the essay - these are the writing vocab words we teach our students like "hook," "bridge," and "thesis statement." Different types of writing might have different sections or components. Typically, I like to think of a component as being one or two sentences, but for stronger writers, these sections might be longer. Each section or component gets its own row in the table. 

The "model" column is just what it sounds like - a model of the term identified in the section column. When we teach writing, we always provide a model. In this method, we take that model and break it into chunks or rows that illustrate what we expect students to do in each section of the essay.

The "explanation" column is where we added teaching tips - you can think of this column as a mini anchor chart to explain what GOOD writers do in this section of an essay. 

The final column is devoted to the student's own writing - the "your work" portion. Using the model and the explanation, students create each section of their essay, moving row by row down the chart. 

Why We Love This Format

• In addition to making it much easier to teach virtually, this table is fantastic for scaffolding. Writing longer pieces can be really overwhelming for students, but breaking it up into smaller chunks, each in a clearly delineated row, addresses some of those barriers. 
• This table is easy to modify - as students become more proficient, you can remove some of the columns; the "model" and "explanation" columns may eventually be phased out.
• Labeling each section of an essay provides students with a formula. It's like giving them a detailed recipe -- after enough practice, students can memorize the recipe, providing them with a formula to apply in other subject areas. 
• Although we always provide a model, we noticed students had trouble finding the applicable sections, and because it wasn't easy to locate the correct parts, they just ignored the model all together - placing the model into the table increases the likelihood they're actually going to refer to it.
• THIS IS SO EASY TO GRADE! You might ask students to copy and paste their rows into paragraphs so it looks "traditional," but when it's time to apply your rubric, grade using the table! You might even choose to create a rubric that directly mirrors the rows you've included in the table.

Keep Us Posted! 

Did you use this kind of table to organize student writing? How'd it work? Make any good modifications? We'd love to hear about them!