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Ideas on how all 9 units integrate into writing assignments in all your other subjects.
With some of the questions lately about how to tackle various writing
assignments, I thought it would be of benefit for me to give you a birds
eye view of IEW and how it integrates into your schoolwork overall. The
nice thing about IEW is that instead of presenting nine-zillion writing
styles, you get 7 Units suitable to handle ANY prompt that is given to
you. The trick is learning to realize which Unit your prompt requires.
Below is a little quick key for writing.
Units 1 and 2
I said you have 7 units for writing because these first two don't really
count as a structural model. Rather, they are the gateway into the IEW
methods. Unit 1 shows students how to create an outline from a single
paragraph and Unit 2 shows them how to take that outline and re-create a
paragraph. These Units are there to get the kids started and are easy
to learn thus helping even the most writing-phobic student to achieve.
But don't be tempted to stay there, the best is yet to come!
In the same way, the stylistic techniques are also set to the side,
much like the spice shelf of a chef's kitchen. The chef needs to
eventually learn what all the things are and how to use them, but you
don't need to know how to use them all to make a pretty wonderful chili.
Also, since not everyone likes to use every spice on the shelf, once
you have tasted them all and understand them, you might not use them all
in your own writing. But you know how if some "recipe" (such as a picky
college professor?) calls for a special one.
The rest of the
Units (3-9) can be taught in any order, so
don't feel like you have to progress thru them numerically. The rest of
the units are split into two sections for ease of use: fiction and
non-fiction. I'll describe the non-fiction first.
NON FICTION UNITS (even numbered units)
Unit 4: Reports from a Single Source
This is great for any quick report when you are working from a single
source (such as a textbook chapter, encyclopedia article, magazine
article, etc). It is perfect for answering the question, "what does this
chapter/article say about _____." Use it instead of end of chapter
quizzes or to fill an empty afternoon. :) Just be sure to give the
assignment in number of paragraphs. "Write me 1 (or 2, or 3, etc)
paragraphs on what you find interesting or important in this document."
Beginning students will collect a jumble of facts and string them into a
paragraph. Older, more mature students should be able to choose topics
on which to write.
It is in this unit that the concept of topic sentence is introduced along with the Topic/clincher rule.
Unit 6: Reports from Multiple Sources
This unit builds on Unit 4 by increasing the complexity of the
report. Instead of "what does that ONE reference have to say about
____," you're asking "what is the general consensus about ___________."
All grade levels need to learn how to take several references, choose
topics, and write a report using details from a variety of sources.
These can be anywhere from short 5 paragraph report to a multi-page
research paper.
You can assign research reports as part of science or history. "Write
a ___ paragraph report on China, planet Mars, history of flight, etc."
They don't give EVERYTHING they can find about the subject, just the
number of topics necessary to create the number of paragraphs you
assigned. They simply pick the portions that are interesting or
important to them located in the sources available.
You don't have to teach footnotes right off the bat. Teach
bibliography first and slowly work your way into requiring foot notes.
You can also use this Unit when notebooking as you can write a
variety of paragraphs on related subjects from various sources. For
instance, if you read a book like Johnny Tremain and wanted to do a
study on the Rev War, you could create a notebook and do paragraphs on
silver smithing, Paul Revere, printing, Ben Franklin, various British
generals, muskets and how they work, a map of Boston in 1776, etc.
(notebooking works with Unit 4 too).
Lastly, this unit is a good one to introduce introduction/conclusion methods.
Unit 8: Formal Essay
This is the crown of "non-fiction" as you take what you have learned
and add your own opinion to the piece. The prompts tend to include
phrases such as
-what is your opinion
-what is important
-which is better
-what is the reasoning behind
-what is the central premise
-compare this and that
-contrast this and that
-persuade me what you think about....
Again, it can be any number of paragraphs from 5-hundreds. The famous
"Thesis" statement that everyone is looking for is simply the point of
your paper in one single sentence and usually is located either at the
beginning or the end of your introduction. The rest of the paper is the
proof of what you are trying to say, and your conclusion can be a
restatement of your thesis statement underscoring your most powerful
argument.
"The Elegant Essay" goes into depth on essay writing, the High School
Essay Intensive will give you a one-day seminar touching on the basics
of doing essays, especially timed and personal ones.
The formal essay is a way for the evaluator to see what information
is in the writer's brain. When writing a formal essay, you might need to
do some study to get some information in there before you can actually
write something. :)
FICTION UNITS (odd numbered units)
Unit 3: Narrative Stories
This unit teaches the basics of telling a story. You take a very
simple fable or tale and reduce it to its basics: beginning, middle and
end. The beginning is the Characters/setting, middle is the plot or
problem, and end is the climax/resolution/moral.
Unlike the Non-fiction units, the outline for narrative is more
free-form with the notes being answers to questions (who is in the
story, what do they say, think, etc). Then the construction of the story
tends to use the outline rather loosely adding in or leaving out and
rearranging at will. There is no perfect delineations between what goes
in what paragraph leaving much to the style of the writer. Some people
love this free-form flow, others hate its flexibility complaining, "But
what is the RIGHT way!" Once either the teacher or the student (or
both!) are willing to get past this desire for strict order, this unit
can become quite fun. :)
The beauty of this model comes in standardized tests where your
students are given a prompt that is supposed to help prompt a story
(Imagine you are in your back yard and you find an object. Write a story
about that object--Ugh). With this model, your student can scan thru
the many stories they know and twist it to match any prompt. Example:
Imagine I imagined that I found a stick. What stories do I know that
have sticks? Lets say I chose the 3 Little Pigs (I thought about the
stick house that the second pig built). Maybe I could make a story about
three little mice building their houses against the cat. One built out
of bird feathers (leftover from a previous victim), another out of
leaves, the third out of sticks. It didn't work. The cat knocked the
stick house down too and ate them all, hence the loose stick I found in
the yard. Good kitty! :)
Unit 5: Writing from Pictures
I believe this unit was created in response to the Canadian
standardized test prompt where school children were given three pictures
from which to write a story. It is a great model for taking any picture
and writing on it. You simply ask for each picture, "What is the
central fact," i.e. What is happening in the picture! After you write
that, you simply expand on that concept by asking the famous questions:
who, what, why, when, where, and how.
If you have three pictures, you do the central fact and details on
each picture, one paragraph per picture. If you need to write 3
paragraphs on ONE picture, you simply do the thing on the one picture,
then imagine what the next picture would look like and write on it, then
what another consecutive picture might portray and write on that. You
could also do one picture prior and one picture after, whatever you
prefer.
This can be useful as a chapter test if you would like. Simply choose
three pictures in the text book and have your students write a three
paragraph report on those pictures. Tada!
Unit 7: Creative Writing
This unit is really more of a confluence of fiction and non-fiction
writing. The key is taking information from the brain and organizing it
on paper. It can be factual ("My Grandmother") or fictional ("My Pet
Monster").
The "My Dog Model" described in the TWSS syllabus is the picture for
creative writing. You choose three topics, come up with details, and
then finish it off with a intro/conclusion. It is close to Formal Essay,
which is why I put Units 7 and 8 together in the helps FILES. Creative
writing tends to be what we do in grade school. It turns into essay in
high school, but many would think that much reporting is still creative
writing. :)
This model is great for the awful, "write about what you did on summer vacation" to "what did you learn in school today?"
Unit 9: Critique
The final result of the fictional models is the formal critique.
These can be glorified book reports where the writer simply summarizes
an author's basic story line and then critiques it: determining if it
was good or not and why. The why part can get into detailed literary
analysis where you examine character development, use of literary
devices such as irony or foreshadowing, exploration of theme, etc. It is
purely subjective, so goes into the fictional model.
Use this model for book reports, movie reviews (its one way to get
something positive out of going to the movies!), or full blown literary
analysis. Just be sure to assign it BEFORE the fact so they can take
appropriate notes.
I hope this overview helps you see how you really don't need to be
confined to writing lessons prepared by curriculum publishers. Learn the
models and then pick any one of them to create an assignment to cement
learning in your student's mind. If you go thru the SWI then SICC A, B,
and C, you will have been taught all 9 units and have experience doing a
variety of assignments in each one and be pretty well set for ANY kind
of future writing.
Jill,
Moderator
Institute for Excellence in Writing
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