Formula Writing (of the ELA variety)

Before you start yelling at me (in all caps, of course) just hear me out. We've all experienced the following scenario.

You assign a writing pre-assessment for your course, or a major writing assignment for summative assessment, and you get the blank stares and raised hands.

The most frightened kids say, "I don't even know where to start!"

The perfectionists say, "Oh my God! It's not enough time!"

The procrastinators say, "Piece of cake." Then they doodle for the first fifteen minutes.

The one or two competent writers in the class start planning. They are the self-starters because they have so much experience with reading and writing outside of class. They are comfortable with universal formats. In their bustling little brains, they have already determined the exact starting point. They know the tone they want to exert. They know the way they are going to hook you--the reader--and keep your attention.

These students, whether we are willing to admit it or not, have internalized writing formats.

The what and why of formula writing is (honestly) more simply said than taught:

Formula writing instruction is the process of teaching students generic steps for developing varying types of paragraphs. You might teach five introductory formats (actual steps with flexible opening phrases) for four different types of writing: narrative, argumentative, informative, expository. In addition, you would teach some basic body paragraph development steps with flexible phrasing. Then, you would teach a number of conclusory formats.

Why teach formulas? Because no matter how much we wish they would, some students--no matter how much you teach writing--will never feel comfortable creating original writing without a framework from which to begin.

Formula writing is actually quite natural.

The reason you and I don't need formula writing instruction is clear. Our most frequently used formulas were embedded in us early enough to mature and evolve into what looks like free-flowing structure. We are teachers because we have both natural and nurtured inclinations for adopting and adapting frameworks.

This could have happened in a number of ways. Maybe your parents read to you as a child, and so you learned beginnings, middles and ends years before your students might have learned how to read. Perhaps you learned to love non-fiction in middle school, so you began to read newspapers, magazines and articles, exposing yourself to commonly used non-fiction structures. Like a computer would, you downloaded the software, the bones of the process, and you began to mimic the flow, fleshing out your ideas on the bones of a carcass (so to speak).

Here's how formula writing could make you and your students very happy.

First, formula writing makes writing a functional structure that just needs tweaking. Many students hate writing and the very idea of having to write because they believe they are starting with nothing. In truth, all writers start with something. They have favorite ways of introducing concepts, favorite transitions and favorite closing statements. When you reveal to your students that we all work with structures that we tweak, they see a starting point. They see a wire frame upon which to "clay" their ideas. This relieves anxiety for students who consider themselves poor writers.

Second, formula writing teaches students how to organize their thoughts. Many of our children are afraid to put pen to paper because their thoughts are circling in their heads in a monsoon-like limbo. When you provide them with a framework of organization, suddenly those thoughts have pegs upon which they can be hung. A student who previously wrote a paper totally off-topic and out of focus can suddenly become coherent because you've helped him organize his thinking into digestible bites.

Third, formula writing ALWAYS gets to the point. Your confident but verbose writers will be restrained by writing methodologies that have always favored logic, brevity and support. Your new writers will learn the importance of supporting ideas with reasons and source information. You won't have to worry about reading a paper on milk that focuses entirely on the making of yogurt.

The complicated part is finding the formulas you support. 

Look around online for writing formats that include three or four steps to complete an introduction, three or four steps to complete a body paragraph, three or four steps to complete a conclusion, and choose THREE OR FOUR EXAMPLES OF EACH that you think students could use interchangeably to be more brilliant on paper. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here are some of mine as examples:

Building a Successful Intro
Incorporating Research into Body Paragraphs 
Call to Action Conclusion

I have some other formula steps for paragraph types if you would like to view them, but there are hundreds online. Choose and adapt what you find is appropriate. Also, you should feel free to read some of the authors you believe are chiefest among all authors and extract their structures. You will see that many of them use the same bones already: similar lead-in styles, similar development styles, similar transitions.

You don't have to believe me. Just try formula writing instruction ONCE, even if you only use it in tutoring. I promise you will see immediate improvement and you will save yourself some headache.

Mousepads and Magic Markers,

-Ms. Moss