Baby steps. That’s the best way to teach and the best way to learn. I began thinking about this when I read a quote by Samuel Johnson:
- “The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continue accumulation of single propositions.”
I realized that breaking things down to the smallest possible component, then teaching that component, is how my students learn best. My first year as a teacher, I jumped right in and began teaching summary writing. I explained the process, the concept, the purpose, then gave them an assignment. Of course, the writing wasn’t what I had envisioned or hoped for. After that, the students had a mental block about summaries, and it took the entire year to teach them how to write one well.
Now I begin at the very basic level of a sentence. First, we learn what a sentence is and how to write a good one. Next, we practice writing topic sentences for summaries. I model, model, model. I write them in green, and now we have green topic sentences on the walls of our room.
Once we’ve mastered the topic sentence, we move on to the first transition. In the beginning, what happened? I make the students tell me what happened in two or three sentences. We write our transitions in blue. The first fact from the story is in yellow, and any details are in red.
After mastering the topic sentence and beginning, we add transitions to the middle and the end. We write a perfect summary together as a class and post it on the wall.
Finally, after we’ve done all of the above to excellence, we add a conclusion sentence.
I no longer teach the summary as one whole project. I teach it in baby steps. Each little piece finally joins together into a magnificent whole. By the end of twelve weeks, my 4th grade students can write a summary that is succinct, clear, well organized, and cohesive. They are very proud of their new writing skill.
Samuel Johnson was on to something when he said, “attempt but little at a time.” It makes a big project seem attainable, one baby step at a time.
