Writing Strategies: Goal 5: Organization and Structure

Welcome to our book study of The Writing Strategies Book:  Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers by Jennifer Serravallo! I am joining forces with some other fabulous teacher bloggers to discuss the writing strategies we come across in this AMAZING professional text!    

Because this book isn't your typical professional development book filled with individual "chapters" of narrative, each teacher blogger will be giving you a glimpse into the 10 goals that are represented in the text.  Each goal area is filled with many valuable strategies that will help you to support and guide your students as they become better writers.  Keep in mind, we are only highlighting a FEW strategies in each section.  There are over 300 strategies in the whole book!

You can find my posts for previous sections below:

Goal 1: Composing With Pictures

Goal 2: Engagement

Goal 3: Generating and Collecting Ideas

Goal 4: Focus/Meaning

The organization and structure of a writing pieces is like the framing of a building.  If a building doesn't have a frame, the walls will fall down.  Likewise, if a writing pieces doesn't have an organized framework, the reader might be confused.


Serravallo says that the strategies in this section aren't just for the planning of the overall piece, but also ways to improve parts of their piece such as the lead and the ending. 

Serravallo provides a progression of what can be expected at various grade levels in terms of structure.  She has a separate one for narrative, opinion, and informational writing.  You can find where your student is at, and look toward the next step to help them improve their writing organization.

Focus Strategy 1: Organize in Sequence

This strategy is good for helping students to organize narratives that move along chronologically.  Serravallo suggests that students make a list of what happened first, next, after that, finally, etc.

You could have students use Post-It notes to help them organize.

Focus Strategy 2: Question, Answer

In this strategy, students think of a list of questions a reader might have about the topic they are writing about.  They then think about how they might answer the question in one to three sentences.

Serravallo suggests they use a new page in a notebook for each question.  They could also use index cards for each question.

Focus Strategy 3: End With Last Words From the Character

This strategy can help students to write stronger endings.  They think about what the character might say at the very end.  What is the last thing they want their reader to hear from the character?

I might use the last paragraph in Number the Stars to illustrate this particular strategy.

If you would like to purchase the book mentioned above, you can find it here.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

Make sure to visit Kelly over at Digging Deep to Soar Beyond the Text.  She is our official hostess for this week, and she has some more strategies and great ideas for you!

If you would like to link up your own blog posts about this book, feel free to do so in the linky below!  Don't forget to check out the other bloggers' posts as well as they write them for even more ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

Writing Strategies Goal 4: Focus/Meaning

Welcome to our book study of The Writing Strategies Book:  Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers by Jennifer Serravallo! I am joining forces with some other fabulous teacher bloggers to discuss the writing strategies we come across in this AMAZING professional text!    

Because this book isn't your typical professional development book filled with individual "chapters" of narrative, each teacher blogger will be giving you a glimpse into the 10 goals that are represented in the text.  Each goal area is filled with many valuable strategies that will help you to support and guide your students as they become better writers.  Keep in mind, we are only highlighting a FEW strategies in each section.  There are over 300 strategies in the whole book!

If you missed our other posts you can find them here:

Goal 1: Composing With Pictures

Goal 2: Engagement

Goal 3: Generating and Collecting Ideas

Goal 4: Focus/Meaning  
Goal 5: Organization and Structure

When we read a book or an article, we assume that the author is writing about a particular topic, and that the author communicates a point.  For example, if you were reading an article about global warning, you wouldn't expect the author to all of the sudden include  a section about why their favorite food is pizza.

Students often struggle with the process of focusing their writing on a particular subject or topic.  Serravallo suggests that we teach students that it's important to have a focal point in mind when they begin writing, but they should also be open to revisions as their writing progresses if they find that it is not going as planned.

When choosing this as a goal for your students to work on, you may want to consider students who:

* have a difficult time articulating their focus.

* have a difficult time matching details to their focus topic.


Serravallo recommends conferencing with a student to help determine if they could use support with this goal.  She suggests asking them, "What do you think your piece is mostly about?"

Does their writing reflect their answer? If not, consider this as a possible goal for the student.

Focus Strategy 1: Ask Questions to Focus

This strategy is a great one for those students who tend to have too big or broad a topic as they write.  This might be a student who is writing about every single detail about their summer vacation when they really want to write about learning to swim. It might also include a student who is writing about how to take care of a dog, but also includes lists of breeds or other types of pets.

This strategy has the writer ask themselves questions to narrow it down such as:

What are you really trying to say?
What is the most important thing about my topic?
What details support this particular topic? Which ones go off course?

Focus Strategy 2: Imagine Your Audience and Consider Your Purpose

My students often struggle with writing with their audience in mind, so I was really drawn to this strategy.  

Serravallo suggests that students think about the purpose of their writing.  Are they writing to entertain, inform, or persuade?  Then, they should think specifically about who the reader will be and what they will want to know about.

Focus Strategy 3: Find a Theme in Your Collection

This strategy is great for students who are working on informative or persuasive pieces.  It works best when the student has collected several pieces of research or writing material.

Students look back at the material they have collected to see if they can find patterns in the details that fit together.  They can ask themselves what main idea or ideas they could focus their informational text on.

If you would like to purchase the book mentioned above, you can find it here.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

Make sure to visit Tried and True Teaching Tools, our official hostess for this week, for even more ideas!

If you would like to link up your own blog posts about this book, feel free to do so in the linky below!  Don't forget to check out the other bloggers' posts as well as they write them for even more ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

Writing Strategies Goal 3: Generating and Collecting Ideas

Welcome to our book study of The Writing Strategies Book:  Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers by Jennifer Serravallo! I am joining forces with some other fabulous teacher bloggers to discuss the writing strategies we come across in this AMAZING professional text!    

Because this book isn't your typical professional development book filled with individual "chapters" of narrative, each teacher blogger will be giving you a glimpse into the 10 goals that are represented in the text.  Each goal area is filled with many valuable strategies that will help you to support and guide your students as they become better writers.  Keep in mind, we are only highlighting a FEW strategies in each section.  There are over 300 strategies in the whole book!

If you missed our other posts you can find them here:

Goal 1: Composing With Pictures

Goal 2: Engagement

Goal 3: Generating and Collecting Ideas

Goal 4: Focus/Meaning  
Goal 5: Organization and Structure

Sometimes students struggle with writing because they have a hard time coming up with ideas to write about. This section of the book gives you strategies to help students generate ideas. 

 Serravallo specifically suggests that writers in grades 3 and above keep a notebook to store ideas that they can return to again and again.

When choosing this as a goal for your students to work on, you may want to consider students who:

* have a hard time getting started during writing time.

* say, "I don't know what to write about."

* You might also check writers' notebooks to see which students have generated short lists during class lessons on idea gathering.  These students may benefit from this goal as well.

Focus Strategy 1: Important People

In this strategy, students make a list of people that are important to them.  They then list memories they have of those people.  

I have done similar lessons to this one in the past at the beginning of the year.  I decided to try a slightly different version after reading this.  Instead of modeling myself with people who are important to me, I modeled with a character in our read aloud How to Steal a Dog.  The students were able to help add the people and the memories since they were familiar with the character.  I felt like this gave them more of a guided experience than just listening to my memories.

Student examples:

This student could benefit from working on this goal.

Focus Strategy 2: Moments With Strong Feelings

Using this strategy, students choose a strong feeling (worry, fear, embarrassment, etc.).  They then think about the memories they have that connect to that feeling.

I think this might be a fun activity to do using emojis.  Have the students pick and emoji, and then think of memories they have that relate to that emoji!

Focus Strategy 3: Jot Today, Write Tomorrow

This strategy really gets students living like writers by carrying around Post-Its or small notebooks to jot down things that happen around them.  My students LOVE using their small writer's notebooks for this!

If you would like to purchase the book mentioned above, you can find it here.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

Don't forget to stop by Melanie from Momma With a Teaching Mission who is our official host of this week's chapter!

If you would like to link up your own blog posts about this book, feel free to do so in the linky below!  Don't forget to check out the other bloggers' posts as well as they write them for even more ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

Writing Strategies Book Study Kickoff and Giveaway!

I first became hooked on Jennifer Serravallo's work when I read Conferring with Readers: Supporting Each Student's Growth and Independence.

Since then, I have read all of her books including The Reading Strategies Book which I have blogged about several times.

So, suffice it to say, I was super excited when I heard that she was writing a Writing Strategies Book!  I immediately pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced, and am happy to say that I was glad I did!

Just like The Reading Strategies Book, The Writing Strategies Book is filled with strategies that you can implement right away with your students regardless of their skill level.

The first 33 pages give a pretty thorough overview of how the book is organized, how to use it, and a few tips for planning lessons for whole class, small groups, and conferencing with individuals.

Each section or chapter is divided into "goals". The first few pages of each chapter gives a brief synopsis of what the goal is and how to know if it would be an appropriate fit for your students.

Next, is a list of strategies that can be used with your students to help them achieve that particular goal.  I love that Serravallo has divided this into grade levels, genre/text type, and process to help you decide when to use each one.

Each strategy is explained in detail with suggested teaching prompts and possible supports such as anchor charts.  There are also suggestions for further reading if needed.

Are you a Reading Strategies Book Fan?  Will you be adding the Writing Strategies Book to your library? If you do, we would love to have you join our book study beginning April 6, 2017.  You can see the full schedule along with the hosts of each chapter here.  

Feel free to link up your own blog posts or just comment along on the host blog for each chapter.

If you haven't already bought this amazing book, you could win it now:

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:  

Prize: Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo

Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher), 

Co-hosts:   An Apple for the Teacher, Momma with a Teaching Mission, Kovescence of the Mind,TeachingLife, Tried and True Teaching Tools,

Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 4/6/17 and is open worldwide.

Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media?  Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Reading Strategies Goal 13: Improving Writing About Reading

Welcome to our book study of The Reading Strategies Book:  Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers by Jennifer Serravallo! I am joining forces with some other fabulous teacher bloggers to discuss the reading strategies we come across in this AMAZING professional text!  If you missed my first post about this book study, you can find it here, along with a suggested way to set up your book for easy reference.

You can also find my thoughts and ideas on other goals in this book below:

Goal 1: Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers   
Goal 2: Reading Engagement   
Goal 3: Supporting Print Work  
Goal 4:  Fluency
Goal 5:   Supporting Comprehension in Fiction Main Idea and Plot
Goal 6:  Supporting Comprehension in Fiction Characters
Goal 7:  Supporting Comprehension in Fiction Theme  
Goal 8: Supporting Comprehension in Non-Fiction : Main Idea  
Goal 9: Supporting Comprehension in Non-Fiction - Key Details   
Goal 10 : Supporting Comprehension in Non-Fiction - Text Features  
Goal 11:  Understanding Vocabulary and Figurative Language  
Goal 12: Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension

Writing about reading incorporates both the thinking readers do as they read and the ability to write a piece that captures and furthers their thinking.  Many students don't realize that readers need to think deeply about the text.  We need to teach these students that thinking about what we are reading matters.

Serravallo warns that teachers need to be careful that when we assign written responses to students, that the writing about reading doesn't overtake the enjoyment of reading.  She suggests offering readers the choice of when and how to respond.

Most of the strategies in this section are geared more towards upper elementary and middle school grades.  Serravallo says that this is because writing about reading in the younger grades can take so long, that she questions whether it is worth the time.  She believes that younger students need to focus on reading a lot, strengthening their print work, fluency, and comprehension.

When choosing this as a goal for your students to work on, you may want to consider students who:

* have greater oral expression of their comprehension than their ability to articulate their ideas in writing.

* may be able to use writing as a tool to support their comprehension.  This may be especially true for students who may have a hard time remembering what they read without written notes.

* have strong writing abilities, but who show superficial thinking in their responses to reading.

Focus Strategy 1: Quick Stops Using Symbols

This strategy is one that students can use as they are reading when they don't want to stop reading to take notes, but they want to remind themselves to come back to take notes. As they read, they can use a quick think mark symbol to note their thought.  They can come back to this page and ask themselves, "What was the thought I was having on this page?"  You can create an anchor chart like the ones below to teach students common symbols and what they mean.

From Upper Elementary Fun

Focus Strategy 2: Buying Stock In Sticky Notes

I really just love the title of this strategy, because I often feel like I need to buy stock in sticky notes for my classroom! I also love this strategy because it was one that I used as a student in high school when I didn't own the book but I wanted to keep track of my thinking.

This strategy encourages students to make use of sticky notes to document their thinking. Serravallo suggest students prompt themselves as they read and have thoughts about what they are reading, "If I write this down, will it help me read better? Talk to my reading partner better? Help me talk to my teacher about what I am reading?  If the answer is yes, they should write it down!

Focus Strategy 3: Five Sentence Summary

I chose this strategy because my students often have difficulty writing summaries. Research shows that one of the best ways to understand what you read is by summarizing it.  So... needless to say, this is an important skill.

You can model this strategy on your hand, telling students to think of the 5 most important events in the story and to say them out loud in order using each of your 5 fingers. The students should then write out each of these events using one sentence per event.

You could create an anchor chart similar to this one from Mrs. Richardson's Class.

Remember, we are only picking and choosing some of the strategies to share with you - there are so many more great ones in this section as well as the rest of the book!

If you would like to purchase the book mentioned above, you can find it here.




This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love. 


Katie from Resources by Roltgen is officially hosting goal 13 over at her blog, so make sure you head over there to see which strategies she chose to share!  While you are there, be sure to leave some comment love!

If you would like to link up your own blog posts about this book, feel free to do so in the linky below!

An InLinkz Link-up