Mystery Solved: Knowledge of Basic Paragraph Structure and Patterns of Organization Improve Writing

By John G. Laflamme Ed.D.

The book covers writing concepts that are overlooked when teaching writing. Though the writing process has contributed greatly to helping students improve their writing, very little instruction exists to assist students in understanding how to organize the ideas once they have generated them. Students need to be adept at identifying the function of each sentence in a paragraph. Too often, students write general statements about a topic and do not provide the concrete details needed to help the reader understand the point. Teachers also want rigor in the writing curriculum, but that often means assigning more and longer essays. A rigorous writing curriculum can challenge students without adding to a teacher's correction load. This book helps teachers achieve that balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637108284

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Mystery Solved

Knowledge of Basic Paragraph Structure and Patterns of Organization Improve Writing

John G. Laflamme, Ed.D.

Copyright © 2021 John G. Laflamme, Ed.D.

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2021

ISBN 978-1-63710-827-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63710-828-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

To my five grandchildren,

Morgan, Mackenzie, Luc, Marley, and Xavi.

The first three are very much into the journey of literacy.

Marley is well on her way, and Xavi is in the early stages.

Acknowledgments

The book was written in a short time span compared to the incubation period it went through. It actually took about four decades as an educator to piece it together. It would not have been possible without the assistance that my former students and colleagues provided. The light grew as the journey continued. No matter that the light almost extinguished a few times, the journey was worth it.

To all of my students, you assisted me on the journey by asking questions when you struggled with writing. In my early career, I often did not have an answer for the frustrations you endured. Many of you left our conference no more enlightened than when we started. A number of you came to the conference, and you already displayed the habits of a solid writer. What both groups had in common is that you forced me to think how to close the gap from opposite ends of the spectrum. You forced me to research the issues you brought up. Eventually, a thread became visible. I followed that thread, and it evolved into this book. I will be forever grateful.

To my colleagues, we sat in meetings, talked at lunch, stopped for a few minutes in the hallways, exchanged ideas, wrote emails, and engaged in so many other activities that I cannot list all of them. Thankfully, I was not on this journey alone because I would not have survived. I needed to hear about your experiences with the teaching of writing. We shared so many of the same frustrations. The workload was unbelievable, but in the end, it all came together. In the last ten to fifteen years of my career, I felt I could answer the questions that you and the students had. Because of the work we did together, I know I was a proficient teacher of writing. The students told me and you told me, but the credit belongs to you. I pondered, researched, and listened.

This is my first venture into book publishing, and I want to acknowledge those individuals at Fulton Books who guided my effort and provided services, advice, and encouragement. The first person I was in contact with was Cindy O’Neal. After a few phone conversations, I knew I made the right decision in selecting Fulton Books as the publisher. She was clear, objective, and confident that Fulton would deliver on their promises. They did. Emma Szymanski was assigned to me as the publication assistant. If I had any questions about the process, she answered my questions with expertise and patience. She made the experience manageable and enjoyable. I would also like to recognize all the individuals and departments at Fulton Books who worked on some aspect of this book to make it a reality.

Introduction

I remember purchasing a pocket-hole set. Its sturdy blue case held several drills, various size screws, and myriad contraptions with holes in them. I read the directions, managed to coordinate a few of the pieces, but I had little conception of the tool’s potential to make carpentry work more easily and more efficiently. I had the tools, but the most important part was missing—the know-how. How do I get all this to work?

This scenario repeats itself frequently in a classroom when students are required to write. They have the tools—the writing implements, the paper or screen, the words, the ideas—but they lack an understanding of how these various elements come together to create an effective message. How do all these meld to produce something useful? Obviously, trial and error is an option, but a more effective way to deal with this situation is to have a knowledgeable mentor explain the parts of the tool and then practice under guidance. Teachers can engender motivation in their students by instructing students in the basic tools of writing—paragraph structure and the patterns of organization. Just as the pocket tool is designed to fasten wood to create furniture, basic structure and patterns of organization are designed to create paragraphs that hold together.

Higher Standards and the Rigorous Curriculum: A Moving Target

Teachers shoulder a great deal of responsibility in teaching students to write. This aspect of their job is labor intensive. Administrators increase the pressure by demanding that teachers continually raise standards and challenge students with a rigorous curriculum. This expectation has been stressed since…well, forever. Then why are teachers still hearing that standards are not high enough, and rigor is still missing from the curriculum? Let me relate an anecdote that typifies the inconsistency in maintaining high standards and developing a rigorous curriculum. This is based on an actual event but is set in an imaginary school kingdom to protect the innocent.

Once upon a time, a high school student was assigned a research paper and needed help locating information for this paper. She turned to a devoted uncle. She chose to investigate the psychological differences between males and females. What a great topic! the uncle thought. He found several books and a video, as this was an advanced civilization, to supplement the materials she was able to locate. Since she lived in another kingdom, and the uncle was only visiting for a short time during the holidays, she needed to complete the research quickly. Reading and writing occupied most of her time during the visit. She did complete a draft while the uncle was there, and they discussed her findings so that she could continue developing the paper. Working diligently, she completed the research, wrote the essay, and submitted it when she returned to school in January.

The uncle waited about a month before contacting her to see if the teacher had returned the paper. He had not. The uncle suspected the teacher was spending a great deal of time pouring over every word. He waited another month and called his niece again. Without much emotion in her voice, she revealed that she received an A. The uncle congratulated her and asked her what the teacher said about her research. The reason for her lack of enthusiasm became evident when she stated that she actually didn’t have the paper, and that if she wanted it back, she would have to make an appointment and give the teacher twenty-four-hour notice. She never made the appointment.

Obviously, the teacher would only correct the paper when students scheduled an appointment, the reason for the twenty-four-hour notice. The teacher’s current practice has to be condemned, but why might a teacher engage in such deception? Someone, maybe the principal, maybe the department chair, maybe even the teacher, decided that rigor meant having students write a ten-page research paper, which is a rigorous activity. Teachers do not relish the idea of assessing a pile of poorly developed research papers and spending hours writing comments that students ignore. Though these reasons seemed legitimate, sanity must prevail. Though not every writing assignment must be corrected, the teacher must correct and provide legitimate and honest feedback on a regular basis. What do students learn from just receiving a grade for their effort without knowing how they achieved that grade? What standards were the students attaining?

To an outsider, the teacher raised standards and asked students to engage in a rigorous activity, but this practice is counterproductive. The teacher is unlikely to provide opportunities for students to revise such a lengthy piece of writing since he would have to correct it again. Students are unlikely to take advantage of the opportunity to revise because the task is just too overwhelming for most students. Most don’t know where to begin. Revising the thesis statement may require an entirely new essay. Do teachers need five-, ten-, or fifteen-page research papers to judge whether a student has solid writing skills?

When teachers assign research papers and provide little feedback, students usually resort to the listing strategy, which is to insert as many unrelated facts to populate the five- or ten-page requirement. With information readily available on the Internet, cutting and pasting borrowed ideas is prevalent and preventing students from improving their writing and thinking. Teacher comments on these papers usually question the thesis and the relationship of the body paragraphs containing disparate facts loosely related to the thesis statement.

Teachers correcting a mountain of papers is reality. For many teachers, maintaining a balance between their professional life and their private life is becoming more difficult as witnessed by the number of teachers who leave the profession within the first five years of employment. Though many reasons account for this departure, workload is consistently within the top three reasons. With high-stakes testing gripping the nation, administrators expect teachers to assign more writing to improve test scores on state tests. Larger classes mean that teachers have less time to spend on each paper they correct, and the result is usually insufficient or incomplete feedback on student writing. Not to let the secret out, but teachers do not need five pages of student writing to teach writing.

If the teachers accept the premise that writers must first master the paragraph to become proficient and advanced writers, then the next point about rigor should resonate with them also. How do schools currently structure the rigorous curriculum? Unfortunately, most equate a rigorous curriculum and raising standards to mean assigning more work and requiring lengthier assignments. Therefore, a rigorous curriculum with raised standards demands four major essays instead of two. In schools where students read one book per term, they are to read three. If the curriculum called for students to learn three hundred new words per year, that will increase to six hundred words. These same students should also complete at least a five-page research paper in all their classes, complete at least thirty minutes of homework per night per class, and take more high-level classes. That type of rigor encourages mediocrity and stress.

Since no one can increase the number of hours in a day, schools must carefully evaluate the subjects they offer and the concepts they stress in those classes. Serious students cannot devote sufficient time to every reading and writing assignment teachers expect of them. Unlike Mick Jagger’s claim, time is not on their side. This book is not about revamping an entire school curriculum but about how a rigorous curriculum involves mastering basic writing skills that will promote and enhance learning in every class. Schools already sponsor a crowded academic environment. To extricate teachers from the pile of student essays that lack direction and purpose, teachers must provide instruction in the basic structure where basic is synonymous with rigor. This book does provide ways to lighten the teacher workload without compromising high standards and rigor. Consider the paragraph below:

Existentialism provides an opportunity for individuals to evaluate their life and reach startling conclusions. Most people spend little time evaluating their daily actions, so their life plods on inexorably in a direction they may not have expected. People can terminate this movement if they take a breather at some point and make adjustments. Unfortunately, life in modern society is too fast-paced and dissuades people from engaging in self-reflection. One day people will realize that they are solely responsible for applying the brake and steering in a different direction.

This writing reflects slothful thinking. Though word choice and sentence fluency suggest that this writer is advanced since a reader might be impressed by the mention of existentialism, an erudite subject, the ideas are redundant, marking the writer as basic. Each sentence expresses the same idea using different words. As such, the paragraph’s organization is nonexistent since it simply consists of a list of sentences about the classic proverb, Wake up and smell the coffee. Apparently, this writer could not find details that would illustrate the point. This lack of development is what places the writer at the basic level for ideas and organization. The writer’s voice is muted since the reader cannot detect who the writer is beyond saying that the writer needs to stand back and evaluate life. Who is the writer? Where is he? What is he doing? None of this is revealed in this paragraph.

If students submit writing similar to this on a regular basis and receive quality grades, they have no reason to change their habits or writing style. Classroom teachers that espouse rigor would have to rate this paragraph poorly since the basic concepts of a paragraph are clearly absent. The writer included five main-idea sentences and no supporting details. The rigor here is to challenge the student to select one of the sentences to serve as the main idea and then develop that idea fully by supplying reasons or examples that would support the main idea. This forces the writer to engage in critical thinking.

Rigor is about expecting students to understand specific concepts and apply those concepts intelligently. In writing, it means asking students to produce paragraphs that communicate effectively and stringing together a series of paragraphs about a topic where the ideas are unified and coherent. It means asking students to dig more deeply and ensure that each paragraph is structured properly. It means examining the details and determining if those are the strongest available and if they are sequenced properly. Too many students revise by simply adding more ideas to their writing, a quick fix for raising scores on high-stakes tests, but not a long-term solution to improving thinking and writing.

Good writers draw distinctions between essential and nonessential information. Therefore, when they generate ideas for an essay, they can sift through the ideas and organize them according to the main points and the supporting details. Basic writers have difficulty with this skill. Their paragraphs tend to ramble on and contain multiple main ideas parading as details. They feel they have fulfilled the assignment as long as they have filled in sufficient blank space on the paper or the computer screen for the teacher to accept the work. Unfortunately, the writing often lacks unity and coherence.

When teachers are equipped with the proper knowledge and strap on their BS detector, they can penetrate the nebula of deceit and demand clear and logical thinking. Students benefit from this honest approach and become better communicators because they also understand how to organize their ideas to achieve the greatest effect. Understanding and applying basic paragraph structure concepts and detecting patterns of organization will not solve all problems, but this knowledge will increase the likelihood that students will grasp the ideas they are presented in their reading assignments and communicate their ideas more clearly in writing.

For parents who homeschool their children or who feel that the school is not providing the writing instruction their student needs, then this book can supplement those needs. Though parents may not be concerned about the research and theories behind the writing instruction provided here, I recommend they read chapters 3 to 5 and then 9 and 10. These chapters are the heart of the book. The chapter on Feedback and Assessment will be particularly helpful in helping their student identify and evaluate their own writing.

The Content of the Book

This book is as much about lightening the correction load as it is about the most critical concept related to the structure of writing in its various forms. The book is unique in that it takes the last fifty years of writing instruction and presents a method of blending the best practices with the critical topics concerning writing

Chapter 1 establishes the rationale for teaching basic structure concepts and patterns of organization by discussing the current practices that obscure the real problem. I include ideas related to establishing standards and what factors actually create rigor in a curriculum. Part of the discussion centers on a spurious writing sample, highlighting ways students can mask their inadequacies as writers. I also bring into question the practice of using professional writers as models before students even understand the basics of the paragraph. In addition, I discuss a writing continuum as a way of identifying current levels in student writing and suggest an explanation for the lack of progress some students experience, even when the instruction is outstanding. I also introduce