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.
Hi!
I
live in Portugal and I have a 16 year old daughter who enjoys writing a lot, however she needs a lot of guidance and to learn technique I can’t help her in that aspect as I don’t know it myself. I would very much like to enroll her in one of your online general writing courses. In Portugal there aren’t any of these online courses or any creative writer courses for that matter. She is still in high school. She has already done her FCE Cambridge exam and is currently preparing for the CAE exam. She absolutely loves English, which is also one of the reasons why I chose an English creative writing course. Is there any possibility of helping us out? I can’t seem to find where she could enroll to be able to do a free online general/beginner course and then we if possible a follow up.
Please do take 5 minutes from your understandably very busy schedule and let me know how to go about this, to my email.
Thank you
Betty
Dear Betty,
Thanks for your message. It’s wonderful that your daughter wants to advance in her writing. There are some university courses online that help with writing. MIT, Massachussets Institute of Technology offers several in essay and fiction writing.
Another excellent site for learning writing is Open University, based in England. It’s also free, and has a wide variety of courses aimed at the undergraduate level. Open University also has forums for students to collaborate, and instructors that will work with the students.
I hope these two links help you.
Suzanne Pitner