Transformative Teachers
Webinar 13 - Writing organisation
Summary notes
Thank you for participating in the Trinity College London teacher support webinar series. We are delighted to have over 1000 teachers from 70 countries participate in the series.
In this webinar, Trinity's Cathy Taylor Senior Academic, Language, interviews Rachel Clarke, Senior Examiner. They discuss writing organisation.
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Webinar 13 video - Writing organisation
Summary of questions and responses
Interview: Cathy Taylor and Rachael Clarke
Firstly, could you summarise what Robin was talking about in the video?
Writing needs to be organised but students are often unaware of how to organise their writing and also don’t know what the components are of well-structured writing.
Robin mentioned that learners often say they know what a paragraph is but in reality they simply divide their writing into chunks on a page – a paragraph is so much more than this. So we need to teach students to recognise and then to produce a well formatted paragraph.
Our students would love to be given a simple set of rules for the structure of a paragraph but paragraph organisation isn’t that simple.
Robin talks about each paragraph having one main idea with supporting information, which is a good foundation for paragraph organisation. Robin gives an example of a paragraph that follows this idea but the information presented doesn’t follow a logical order. So showing that simply having a main idea with supporting ideas isn’t organised well enough to be helpful. However, asking learners to simply make this text ‘logical’ doesn’t give enough guidance as to what makes a paragraph logical.
Robin suggests using text analysis as a way of raising students ‘awareness and giving practical examples of how a good paragraph should be structured. If we look at the 1st example paragraph the information doesn’t follow a sequence and it is hard to follow the writer’s thinking. The 2nd example of this paragraph follows an order of going from the general to the specific; the writer gives general information about Asturias, its climate, what attracts tourists and finally gives detail of why the geography and climate of Asturias allows tourists to take part in outdoor sports. It goes from the general to specific information. These two texts give a very good example of how to structure a paragraph that gives information.
So, two foundations of paragraph organisation are:
- One main point per paragraph and supporting ideas
- Sequence from general to specific
But there’s more to paragraphing structure than simply the order of your ideas.
1. Could you give an overview of why it’s important to have well-organised writing?
Well organised writing means that:
- The reader can follow the writer’s thinking and receive the message clearly from the writer.
- Helps the writer to think clearly and present a coherent piece of writing by following a clear structure.
- Makes the writer’s ideas easily accessible so a student’s writing is more likely to be read and be effective.
- The writer’s job is to organise their thoughts and not expect the reader to struggle through a chaotic group of ideas having to work out what the writer is trying to convey
2. From the video it seems that writing paragraphs and essays can be challenging - do you have any insights why learners would find it difficult?
Learners have rarely been asked to analyse the structure of paragraphs and have little awareness of the need to make writing accessible to the reader. As paragraph structure varies depending on the genre, style and purpose of the writing it’s difficult to give learners a simple set of rules to follow. They need to learn how to analyse paragraph structure and recognise the right format for the task their working on. This takes hard work, thinking time and a slow accumulation of information, a sort of process of development rather than a straightforward ‘copy a model’ type learning.
3. The main element of a paragraph is the topic sentence. What exactly does this mean?
A topic sentence gives the reader a clear idea of what the paragraph is going to be about, suggests what the reader will find out by reading the paragraph and acts as a mini-introduction to each paragraph.
To help with coherence of the overall text i.e., linking of ideas through organisation and structure, a topic sentence can refer back to the previous paragraph topic to show the logical sequencing of the text overall.
Topic sentences - Classroom idea:
- Using a good academic text – make copies of the whole text for each pair of learners
- Cut off the topic sentence and give each pair all the topic sentences from the text
- Pairs predict what they think each paragraph will be about
- Compare with other pairs
- Give what remains of the text and ask pairs to match the topic sentences to the remains of each paragraph using their predictions as guides
- Show complete text on screen: are the topic sentences in the right paragraphs?
(You can also use this activity to analyse and work on concluding sentences too)
4. Sometimes the main body of the paragraph is called the development section. Are there specific conventions for this?
There are conventions on how to organise/structure these various elements of a paragraph for example:
- Persuading: presenting a point in a discursive paragraph. It is quite logical to give your hypothesis in your topic sentence, then present your idea, discuss opposing ideas and why they’re not valid. In your concluding sentence you would show why your hypothesis has been proven by the discussion points in the paragraph.
- SPSE (Situation, problem, solution, evaluation) essay you might have these elements in each paragraph about separate issues in your subject. So each paragraph would follow the SPSE sequence to help the reader to follow your ideas.
There are other ‘conventions‘ for particular formats of paragraphs and writing genres. The key is to find good examples of the genre you’re trying to learn about then analyse the structure to become aware of the possible logical sequence for that type of information
Main body - classroom ideas:
- Give learners a variety of different styles of text (discursive, SPSE, cause and effect, information, etc)
- In groups of 2s or 3s – decide which format style each text follows
- Give groups of 2s or 3s jigsawed texts. Ask them to put the sentences in order according to the style of the text. Compare with others
- Put full versions on screen
Another version: Give groups of 2s or 3s badly organised texts. Ask them to decide how to better organise each text
5. Robin also said that paragraphs need to be logical and coherent. Can you tell us a bit more about this?
I think we should clarify the difference between coherence and cohesion. For me coherence is the logical sequencing of ideas that follow the conventions of the genre and place you’re writing in e.g., a discursive deductive essay style is a typical UK academic style but in other countries an inductive style is the norm. The deductive approach is to present your hypothesis and then prove this in your argumentation, whereas the Inductive method is to present a series of facts/pieces of information and then conclude with your opinion at the end.
Cohesion is the glue that holds the ideas together and helps the reader to understand what each point is doing within the paragraph such as signposting language, use of pronouns etc. For example, using the connector ‘in contrast’ allows the reader to know that the next point will be in opposition to the point just made.
Without these cohesive devices the reader has to work out for themselves what each point is doing; is it in agreement, is it arguing against the point is it showing cause and effect? So cohesive devices help the reader to follow the writer’s thinking.
Summarise / paraphrase Prompt for classroom ideas
Cohesion - classroom ideas:
- Give groups of 2s or 3s a vocab sheet of cohesive devices (e.g., however, because, in addition, etc) with a table with headings by functions (e.g., comparing, contrasting, adding, giving reasons, cause and effect, sequencing).
- Ask groups of 2s or 3s to put the linking words under the right function and to guess those they don’t know.
- Give groups of 2s or 3s a good academic text and ask them to highlight the linking words throughout the text.
- Groups of 2s or 3s check their categorisation of each linking word in the table using the context given by the text. Compare with others.
- Give groups of 2s or 3s a text with the linking words blanked out. Learners choose the best word for each gap.
- Groups of 2s or 3s write a short paragraph using some of the linking words.
6. Robin said that paragraphs are the building blocks of longer texts. Can you elaborate on this a little?
Paragraphs usually have a topic sentence, like a mini introduction, and a concluding sentence, like a mini conclusion. In both these sentences it’s useful to link to the preceding and following paragraphs which helps the coherence of the writing and helps the reader to follow the logic of your whole text organisation. For example, your topic sentence might refer to the evidence shown in the preceding paragraph to introduce the argument you’re about to show.
7. We rarely use language skills separately – what importance does reading play in learning how to write a well-structured paragraph?
As seen in the classroom activities ideas mentioned before, reading is essential in developing awareness and skills in paragraph organisation and text development. These texts do not act as models or examples to be copied but work as tools to help learners:
- learn how to analyse text organisation, depending on the style and genre. This means they can be independent learners and use these analytical skills for any style of text they will need to write in the future.
- recognise and develop vocabulary for cohesion through the context of the texts they read
- notice the effect on the reader of good text organisation.
Learning how to analyse an academic or classroom text to look for organisational patterns is great training that can be used in other types of writing. Learning how to recognise the conventions of style, organisation, register, coherence and cohesion is an essential skill that can be adapted to be sued in other writing tasks.
In wiring for work students need to learn how to organise their writing to be relevant to the task e.g., report writing, articles, letters, emails or meeting minutes. As Robin said at the start of the video, all types of writing need to be organised and to follow a general accepted order and style.
You can find help with the varying conventions for many writing genres on the Trinity website: ISE support – ‘Guidance on writing genres’ and ‘Portfolio toolkit for teachers’ ISE I : https://www.trinitycollege.com/site/?id=3194
Questions from the floor:
How can a teacher adjust their teaching of writing organisation for different language proficiencies?
Good organisation in writing starts with the first simple sentences and phrases. A simple task like giving students jigsawed sentences and asking pairs to put the sentence in order can be very helpful. Even if they discuss the order in their own language they’re still thinking about structure and sequencing and applying these ideas to a sentence in English.
Using simple cohesive devices can be very helpful even at beginner level, e.g., and, and then, first, second, because etc
Is a good language level necessary in order to teach cohesive devices?
This is another side of the question above and we should start teaching cohesive devices from beginner level. Simple words such as and or but are low level and can be taught quite successfully.
How can a teacher save time on marking student essays? (peer review?)
Using peer review is a very useful way to help students develop their own proofreading skills, to learn how to check their text organisation, work together to look at coherence and logical organisation and to look at ‘error correction’. Give pairs a set of questions and points they should check for when they review their partner’s work to guide students on what to comment on and to teach them how to proof read methodically. Students should highlight where there are problems and give marking ‘codes’ that help the writer to correct their own work, whether for organisation, lexis or language errors.
You could use this peer review method to review marking time but eventually the teacher does need to do this themselves as we need to know what students have improved on and where they need further support. If, as teachers, we follow this method of highlighting and guiding we can help students to develop independent proofreading skills which they will be able to use in the future. Simply correcting and ‘marking’ may not be as helpful in developing these independent skills. I give my students their own individual ‘proofreading list’ of their frequent errors to help them to stop making fossilised errors and to work on specific areas of weakness.
How does writing organisation relate to the Trinity exams? e.g., ISE task 4
The writing rating scales for writing include ‘Organisation and structure’ as one assessment category which covers coherence and the use of cohesive devices so paragraph and text organisation are embedded in the construct. You’ll find the rating scales in the Teachers guide on the website. This is the link for ISE II https://www.trinitycollege.com/site/?id=3195
How important is punctuation? What are some ways to practise good comma usage, for example?
Punctuation is an essential tool in helping the reader to follow what the writer is trying to say. However, it’s difficult to give students sets of rules for punctuation as these rules are often open to discussion and change with time. The key idea to get across is to think of the reader and use punctuation to make the sentence clear.
Classroom idea:
- Give students sentences without punctuation and ask them in 2s or 3s to punctuate how they think the sentence should be punctuated to give the right meaning.
- Give them the real version to see if it matches their ideas. Again, using reading and text analysis is incredibly useful.
I’ve found some entertaining examples in a book by Lynn Truss – Eat Shoots and Leaves (e.g., A woman: without her, man is nothing. Or A woman without her man is nothing. Same words but completely opposite meanings!)
Is writing on paper still a valid practice? Shouldn't students write on a computer, if they can? Isn't it much more practical/easier to edit/organise?
We write on computers all the time and so it makes sense to ask our students to use computers for their writing. However, a word of warning – check which ‘English’ the computer is set up for, it may not be the variety you wish to use. Sometimes the grammar isn’t always wholly accurate for the context in which you’re writing. In an exam situation, learners may find that the spell and grammar checks have been disabled, so they do need to be able to proofread their own work and not rely on the software to do it for them.
Is there any software to use to check writing errors?
Yes, there are various programs but it’s also useful that learners can check their own work. It’s part of the learning process and confidence in their own work, if a learner thinks they need to check their grammar all the time they’ll question their own abilities, it’ll also slow them down. It’s worth thinking about the development of reviewing and evaluating skills as these are part of the OECD core competencies for the 21st century.
Do you think the students of elementary level can also benefit from peer-review?
Yes, absolutely. Encouraging your students to work together and discuss their work is extremely useful. You can give your students clear criteria to use when looking at each others’ work and explain that it’s not about the marks or right or wrong but about the areas you’ve selected, or they’ve chosen themselves.
Give some examples of master piece (models) to refer to as a writing model for trinity exams?
What you’ll find on the website are candidates’ texts which have been assessed and rationales with explanations for the scores awarded rather than ‘masterpieces’, although there are samples which have been rated as distinction level. Have a look at the resource pages. Here are some links:
Do you think that it's a good idea to have students write their essays in class in order to avoid plagiarism?
Students can’t always write essays in class time, so they do need to learn to write outside the class. I think it’s of more benefit to explain to the students why plagiarism isn’t a wise choice. For one thing universities run all essays through various software programs to identify plagiarism. Also, if you need to produce texts in a work context or elsewhere you’re likely to be found out quite quickly.
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We look forward to welcoming you to our fourteenth webinar on Wednesday 29 August at 13:00 UK time, when we'll be developing this topic and talking to Martin Oetegenn about 'Knowing your reader'.
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