As I began my Stories of Learning adventure for another year, I faced with the same problem. A slew of ideas were in my head, ranging from bland to grandiose, but with little direction or idea of how to actually put them into place. I once again started the stressful but challenging process of chipping away to find a compromise that would be of value to my students and also achievable. And then, like a Hollywood great, it struck me. I would write a sequel. With images of Wayne’s World 2 and Terminator 2: Judgement Day in my head, the ideas began to form. The cast were a little older. Some of the main players weren’t available, having moved on to Senior School. But the original premise was right and, with some tweaking and a few fancy special effects, how could it go wrong?

As a teacher, I am faced with the ever-present challenge of how to continually improve what I do in the classroom to benefit my students’. Each year I stress the importance of essay writing and, in particular, paragraph structure, the value of which will be seen in almost all subjects throughout their education and beyond. Seeing boys grasp this new skill is certainly a rewarding aspect of my job and inspires me to continually try to improve how I teach.

Background

I have been teaching the novel, Tomorrow, When the War Began (TWTWB), by John Marsden in Year Eight English for several years. It was the focus of my research last year, in particular replacing comprehension questions with a Think Puzzle Explore table

(http://storiesoflearning.com/2012_Middle_School_Stories/Entries/2012/12/5_Hard_Work__Using_Think-Puzzle-Explore_to_Replace_Comprehension_Questions_in_the_Teaching_of_a_Novel.html) . As often happens when going through the process of experimenting, evaluating and writing, I came to some valuable conclusions about how the novel is taught and had a few questions or areas that needed further thinking and experimentation. I decided the focus of my writing should connect with last year’s and take it further. One of the main areas that I was still unsatisfied with was the connection between using a TPE table for comprehension and actually improving my students’ preparedness for the essay, which the boys complete in an in-class exam to finish the unit. To solve this problem, I have introduced Generate-Sort-Connect-Elaborate (GSCE) (www.pz.harvard.edu/vt) as a means of unpacking their ideas and planning for the essay.

My class is a large class of boys, who spend the majority of Term One studying the text. There is a spread of very capable boys and some who find English difficult. There is a large group in the middle who are quite content to complete the work to a reasonable standard, but will, if pushed, achieve some great things. For this piece of research, the focus will be on the class as a whole.

Method

Generate Sort Connect Elaborate is a method of concept mapping that is more prescriptive, which leads students to be more thoughtful and deliberate in how they gather their thoughts. In this case, the boys used the routine as a means of planning for an essay. GSCE is effective in this situation because it allows a student to ‘generate’ a wide range of ideas of varying strength then pushes them to evaluate their quality through the ‘sort’ process. The final two steps resonate most strongly with planning an essay. ‘Connect’ allows a student to make links between different ideas, which is beneficial in linking paragraphs together. Finally, the ‘elaborate’ step helps a student move from a broad example to starting to form the substance of their paragraph.

Unit set up

I introduced the GSCE to my class after completing a detailed analysis of the text, including completing a Think Puzzle Explore table on most chapters, so the boys had a strong knowledge of the events and characters and had discussed at length the various themes and ideas. Due to time constraints, the aim was to complete the ‘generate’ and ‘sort’ steps in the first lesson and follow up with ‘connect’ and ‘elaborate’ in the second lesson, which would then lead into starting to write the essays. We began with a pile of Post-It notes and sheets of A3 paper and two essay topics on the board. The boys chose an essay topic and started to generate their ideas. The mood in the classroom was productive, with boys working in pairs to discuss ideas before producing their own concept map. The lesson ended with all having several ideas on their page, some with lots more. They had all managed to sort them according to how strong the ideas were.

The next lesson began with a recap of the process so far as well as an explanation of how the next two steps worked. I stressed that this would become the plan for their essay. The next step involved making connections between ideas. This step is important as it shows their understanding of the text as well as the topic. I was impressed to see that there were some excellent connections between ideas as well as some rudimentary ones. Finally, they were given more sticky notes and asked to elaborate on their main ideas. The point of this was to start to build discussion around their examples, which would form the core of the paragraphs of their essays. Again, some boys made some excellent connections while others were quite simple.

Joining GSCE to the essays

The final step in leading us towards the essay was joining the concept map to the essay. In Year Eight English, I teach the TEEL model, (Topic sentence, Explain, Evidence, Link) so it was easy to make the connection to the Evidence (the initial examples generated) and Explain (elaborate). The Connections they made should also help improve their linking sentences. This gave the boys a sample of ideas, allowing them to choose those that worked best for their essay and to simply build on the ideas they already had down. This was particularly effective for boys who struggled to grasp both the essay topic and the structure of the essay. From here, it was a matter of working through the steps to write an essay and dropping in the ideas they generated through the mind map.

Outcome

After generating what I saw as very useful plans for their essay, the boys spent time at home preparing for the essay that they would write in class, under exam conditions. The essays were pleasing. While it is always difficult to quantify improvement, as each year I have a different set of students, I am confident that the process was worthwhile. As expected, the top students produced excellent essays, with their paragraph structure clearly influenced by the GSCE concept maps. More pleasingly, the middle band of students produced essays that had consistently thoughtful examples and visible links between the ideas.

Since I had emphasised the importance of mastering essay structure, I was looking closely for clear topic sentences, logical linking sentences and thoughtful, well explained examples in their paragraphs. It was obvious that this message was understood, as most boys began and ended their paragraphs in the required way. All students had examples (admittedly, of varying quality), and had used the thoughts they collected in their GSCE to explain and connect these examples. I was a happy teacher.

Student feedback

The honesty and validity of feedback from our own students cannot be underestimated. So, with a hint of nervousness, I called on my boys to appraise the process. In the hope of proving to myself that the boys understood the value of the GSCE, I asked them to explain the purpose of this method of planning. Their responses are included, mistakes intact.

“To get the topic you are doing and get good ideas as the to what you are writing about. It forced you to plan what you were to do your essay on and not go straight into writing.”

“To help us to see how they develop and how they are all linked.”

“To find the main points of the story and add them together to form a paragraph to help us with the essay.”

These carefully chosen responses show the boys’ understanding of the importance of planning and paragraph structure. This is certainly supported by their fine attempts at structuring their paragraphs. Planning for an essay is so important, as was demonstrated by the first comment. This is a terrific habit to take on board for their future learning.

The feedback that follows is a selection of responses to the question ‘How did it help you plan for your essay?’

“It really helped me realise what I should write about. It also gave me some structure to my essay.”

“I think the table was very useful as it helps me find the ideas I want, put them into relevant groups and find the most important ones. It helped me to know my ideas and what I wanted to write about.”

“It gives us ideas and makes it easy to understand.”

While it is unlikely the table “gave… ideas” it is certainly evident that the boy understood the value of the table and the feedback shows that it has helped with their planning and essay structure. Crucially, the boys still need to come up with the ideas themselves, which had to come from their previous learning on the novel.

Finally I asked for some feedback on how it could be better used.

“It could be the same just writing it on a piece of paper.”

“If we could bring it into the exam.”

“Bigger groups.”

The feedback above provided me with valuable insights into how I might better structure the use of the GSCE in essay planning. Working in “bigger groups” could certainly provide a broader ideas base and would not be difficult to manage. The majority of the rest of the comments seemed strongly in favour of its use in planning.

“I don’t think it could be better.”

“I think this is the best way to use it.”

Discussion

With several months having passed since completing this research, I can now look back with a fresh pair of eyes at the GSCE’s usefulness in planning for essays. Among the most important benefits, the boys’ positive outlook and increased focus on actually planning their essays before writing is glaringly obvious. By having to evaluate the quality of their ideas, they are honing in on the best aspects to discuss in their essays. Finally, carefully considering the links between their ideas has helped the flow from paragraph to paragraph.

Of course, there are downsides. Time is always a factor, and it made the planning process much slower than a more general brain storm. However, this would have removed some of the stress (or extra homework time, dependent on study habits) at the writing stage. There is always room to improve the implementation of any new tool, so we will refine the way we manage the task through groups, materials and the like.

In Term Three, when studying a new novel, I reminded the boys of our use of the GSCE in planning for an essay, however I did not make it compulsory. I decided to give them the option of choosing how they would plan so they could defer to their preferred method, but, in hindsight, this was a mistake. Less than quarter of the class decided to use it in their planning. While I cannot categorically say that it improved their essays, it is evident that the boys who chose to use it produced essays of which they could be proud. It also got mentioned as we start to plan speeches for debates we are going to hold in class. As my English classes move towards examinations, my plan is to make the GSCE compulsory in planning their essays. From here, we can build on our use and understanding of the GSCE for planning. With more practise, the GSCE will become second nature and will be a very useful tool to prepare for the essays they will complete in years to come. 

Conclusion

As I conclude my story of learning, I return to my initial struggle for an idea and my love for Wayne’s World 2.  Like everything in learning, there are challenges but through persistence we see improvement. I am still learning the best ways to utilise routines like Generate Sort Connect Elaborate, but it is challenging and rewarding to learn alongside my students as we experiment and push our thinking. Who knows, if I get the inspiration for another story, or really need the money, perhaps I might just make this into a trilogy.