How Learning About Structure Helped Me (and My Students) Write Better

To many reading this blog post, this may sound pretty obvious, but structure matters. And here's the thing I've learned over the course of my experience in school, getting myself through college, and moving into the teaching world: Structure matters, more than people think; but it can also be a lifeline to those struggling to generate ideas. 

Allow me to explain. 

When I was in school, although I loved writing, and reading was my favorite escape, I struggled when it came to writing papers. Did anyone notice me struggling? Probably not. I hid it well. However, every time I received a prompt to write a five paragraph essay, I went through varying levels of panic before I started writing. And this happened every. single. time. So how did I get past this anxiety? 

I started to look for patterns. I started looking more closely at the prompts I was given. 

Now, most teachers will break a five paragraph paper down like this:

• Paragraph 1: Introduction
• Paragraph 2: Body Paragraph 1 (if you get a really good teacher, they might explain that you should have your "better" argument here)
• Paragraph 3: Body Paragraph 2 (again, that really good teacher might tell you that your "good" argument goes here)
• Paragraph 4: Body Paragraph 3 (and that really good teacher might tell you that your "best" argument goes here)
• Paragraph 5: Conclusion
  • That really good teacher could tell you that by structuring your body paragraphs in the better, good, best order, you are keeping your reader's engagement throughout your writing, hooking them with your second best idea so they'll want to read through your good idea, and then hooking them once again with your best idea when they might otherwise start to lose interest. This is all great stuff. 

​Now, to a kid who struggles with writing anxiety, even if this information is laid out on the whiteboard with some decent descriptions, this could all seem like gibberish, as it did to me. A kiddo with this kind of anxiety may spend so much cognitive effort trying to figure out the formula for writing their perfect paper that actually generating ideas, let alone getting words on the page, can become a daunting, near impossible task. Even if they have the potential to write really good stuff. Even if they understand how compound and complex sentences work (we'll talk about this another time).

By the time I got into my junior year (and my last year of high school), I knew I had to crack the code somehow. I knew I wanted to go to college, and that I was likely going to have to suffer through endless paper writing in my higher education. So that close looking I did became really close looking. This is a process that developed over the course of my junior year, into college, through college, through publishing my first book, and into my teaching career. It was really when I started to see that same panic on my own students' faces that I realized I could apply how I now understood structure to their learning. 

Here is how I like to lay it out:

• Paragraph 1: Introduction
  • Sentence 1: What do you want to talk about? 
  • Sentence 2: Why do you want to talk about it? (Why is it important?)
  • Sentences 3 - 5 (Depending on grade/skill level): What do you have to say about this thing? (Sneak peek - what are your readers going to be reading about?)
  • Final Sentence: What do you hope to achieve from writing this? What should your readers gain from your paper?
• Paragraph 2: Better
  • Sentence 1: Transition sentence. Since this is the first thing you have to say about your topic, introduce it as such. 
  • Sentence 2: Why are you saying this? (Why is it important?)
  • Sentences 3-5 (Depending on grade/skill level): What is there to say about this thing? (What does the research say? OR What are your opinions? OR What details support your claim? - all of these questions would be filtered out depending on the type of writing they're doing).
  • Final Sentence: What are you trying to achieve by writing about this piece? What should your readers understand at this point?

Starting to recognize a pattern here? I did!

• Paragraph 3: Good
  • Repeat the same structure and questions from paragraph 2. With your transition sentence, switch up your transition word to support which idea you're talking about now.
• Paragraph 4: Best
  • Repeat the same process again, here.
• Paragraph 5: Conclusion
  • Sentence 1: What did you talk about in this paper? 
  • Sentence 2: Why is it important? Why did you want to talk about it?
  • Sentence 3 - 5: What were your key points and major supporting details?
  • Final Sentence: What are your concluding thoughts? What should your reader understand at this point? Should their minds be changed in any way? Why?

Of course, providing even this much breakdown for the structure can still leave a student feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand. Some parents (or other teachers) would argue that by breaking it down at a sentence level, I was "giving away the whole farm." But what I learned was that doing this allowed many of my students to get past their anxiety over having to write a paper, and actually allowed them to get their ideas on the page.

Now,  some of my students would look at all this broken down information and spiral even further, thinking that the more information they see on the board, the more work they're going to have to do. 

This is where interactive examples saved the day. 

When I had this information up on the board, I always walked through it step by step with my students. Still, however, I'd often see that same familiar look of white hot panic on many of their faces. At this point, I would say, "Let me show you. Everyone, get out a piece of paper. We're going to take some notes." Groans, of course, because few kiddos enjoy taking notes as much as I do. 

Once everyone had their pencils ready, I would come up with a paragraph with them. "Okay, guys. Let's pick a topic. I want to write about... taking your dog to the vet for regular check ups. That's my first sentence." At this point, I liked to reiterate that the most important thing is putting the words on the page. You can always rewrite and edit, but ONLY if you have words already there to work with. So often, I would actually just write whatever it was I was thinking about as I was trying to convey this information to them. 

I'm writing my paper about the importance of taking your dog to the vet for their regular checkups. 

"Now, class. Let's talk. Why am I writing about this? Why is this important?" Most often, I'd get a few brave souls who raised their hands and gave me reasons. Then, we'd write it together. 

Taking your dog to the vet regularly is an important part of keeping your dog healthy and happy. 

"Great, class. Why? What are some benefits to taking your dog to the vet regularly?" Again, I'd get some hands up, often a little bit more this time. 

"Awesome. Let's write it." 

When dogs are seen by their vets on a regular basis, they can receive important vaccinations that can help keep them from getting sick. They can have their bodies checked to make sure they're healthy, and they can get a happier, more attentive owner because you now know your dog is healthy and happy (or whatever that final reason would be. Some kids might say because the dog gets to have a treat, and for a starting point, that's okay!). 

As I went through this process, I had my students write my example with me. This did a few things: 1. It kept them engaged long enough to get the explanation. 2. It broke the ice. They could write their paper. They were already writing mine. 3. It allowed them to see and experience my brainstorming process alongside me, which then helped tremendously when they had to move on to writing on their own. 

The same process can be applied - as far as I've experienced - to really any situation or writing format. Need to write five PAGES instead of five paragraphs? Easy. Just go through the process, but instead make those sentences into paragraphs. You can always add more detail, find better research, better explain your thought processes. The hardest part for many is just getting started. Knowing what to say. Knowing what path to follow. And having a thorough understanding of structure helps, a ton.

I hope you found today's entry helpful in some way. I personally love writing about my teaching days, as I loved teaching. I loved finding new ways to engage my students, and teach them about things in ways that made the learning fun and more meaningful for them. Interested in reading more writing related content? Check back next weekend, or sign up for my email list (sign up form located at the bottom of my home page) so you don't miss any new posts.