One day, while working with a student named Jaimie, I drew a circle and wrote the topic of the essay in the center of the circle. Then I encouraged Jamie to come up with as many words as possible about the topic. “Just tell me what pops into your head!” I coaxed.

After we had a circle full of words, I faced another challenge: Turning those words into sentences, then paragraphs, etc. So, I took scrap pieces of lined paper and handed Jaime one piece. “Pick a word”… This is how the Clustering Writing activity started.

I realized that students get overwhelmed with the big picture idea of writing a whole essay. The sense of overwhelm at the task seemed to stop many students cold. However, if I broke the task into chunks by having them write first one word at a time, then one sentence, then one paragraph until all the pieces were written, students could successfully put them together.

Each step of the way, they experienced success through what they accomplished. Instead of looking at a paragraph as so little done, they would look at a paragraph as one more chunk done!

My daughter was struggling with the effort of writing a scholarship application essay during her Junior year in high school. I had been using the clustering strategy with students with special needs for years. I had not tried it with an Honors level student. I showed her the technique and suggested she try it. This strategy worked so well for her she has continued to use it for all her writing assignments.

Research Background for Clustering

Graphic organizers have been applied across a range of curriculum subject areas. Although reading is by far the most well studied application, science, social studies, language arts, and math are additional content areas represented in the research base on graphic organizers.

In these subject areas, graphic organizers demonstrate benefits that extend beyond their well-established effects on reading comprehension.  Operations such as mapping cause and effect, note taking, comparing and contrasting concepts, organizing problems and solutions, and relating information to main ideas or themes can be broadly beneficial.

Download – A graphical illustration of the clustering process

For more information about study strategies for your student, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Ummm, Studying? What’s That?. Available in both print and electronic versions!

Would you like to reprint this article, or an article like it, in your newsletter or journal?
CLICK HERE to visit the articles page.

The post Using Clustering to Organize Writing appeared first on Susan Fitzell.

I stressed how important it was to write a professional looking letter. I explained that their letter not only represented them, but it also represented the school. We did not want to embarrass the school. The students took the issue and the project very seriously. One of my students decided to go straight to the top. He wrote to then First Lady Barbara Bush. This student, Charles, also happened to be my most challenging student in the class, behaviorally and academically.

On the last day of school I was packing up my classroom. Suddenly, I heard my name shouted in the hallway in an excited chant. “Mrs. Fitzell! Mrs. Fitzell! Mrs. Fitzell.”  I recognized the voice. It was Charles. Eventually, he burst into the room waving a piece of paper. “Mrs. Fitzell, look, look! I got an answer from Mrs. Bush!” He shoved the paper in front of my face excitedly. “Look!” I oooed and ahhhed and praised him for doing such a great job on that letter. We talked about the assignment and how hard he worked on it. I’ll never forget the pride on his face. That is what a teacher lives for.

Research Background

The creation of a mind map in a small group is an active and collaborative learning exercise. Because a mind map captures a specific topic in a nonlinear fashion and incorporates graphics and colors, this exercise also can connect with learners whose style is not well served by traditional linear, text-based materials.

The post Using the Friendly Letter as an Approach to Improving Writing Skills. appeared first on Susan Fitzell.

Visual Demonstration

1. The Brain – the intro: like the brain, the intro “controls” the body of the essay (especially point out ‘thesis’)

2. The Heart – body paragraph: at the “heart” of the essay are the body paragraphs.

3. The Feet – conclusion: like your feet,the conclusion leads you to somewhere new (i.e. new idea, insight). Also students should be able to answer the question “so what?” (Why is this information important?) by the time the essay has reached the feet. –

The post The Body of the Essay: A Visual Demonstration appeared first on Susan Fitzell.