5.+Elementary+Basics

=Elementary Basics= toc This represents the introductory level to the AGSD Writing Program. During the elementary grades students will be introduced to and become increasingly familiar with the structures used in this method. They will come to understand the parts of the enthymeme, and how to use them in written communication.

This is generally a time when most students are doing fiction writing (creative writing) and writing about personal experiences. It is also a time when students are being introduced to more formal non-fiction writing (often reports).

WHERE TO BEGIN
The real question is where should one begin when teaching this method at different grade levels. Understand that this process is not always linear. Several of these concepts can be taught simultaneously, and all need to be reviewed and emphasized often, even when you have moved on to more difficult parts of the process. This process becomes more successful when students can internalize the parts. The order they appear here approximates a developmental order of the parts.

Grammar
It is imperative that students can understand, identify, and use nouns, pronouns, verbs, and describing words (adjectives and adverbs) correctly. It is not all that important that they understand the difference between adjectives and adverbs, only that they understand their function in speech. Use a grammar program that you like to stress these concepts early and practice them often. Although you will probably be teaching other grammar concepts as well, be sure to emphasize and review these as often as possible.

=What because why=

Establish that this structure is essential to good communication. This can be taught in class as a skill much in the way that you would teach sentence structure – as drills on the board or worksheets.

Explain to students that to be effective, communication must be simple and precise. Begin by working on the “simple” part of that statement.

Explain that the “simple” part of communication is made up of two parts: what and why.

Examples:

Kid: I am going to walk down to the store.

Mom: Why?

Kid: To buy some candy.

Forming the results of this simple communication into a sentence you would say; I am going to walk down to to buy candy. OR: I am going to walk down to because I want to buy candy.
 * What because Why**

Practice this kind of discourse often, where you present a hypothetical exchange, as above, and form it into the kinds of sentences that resulted. Always reiterate the structure “what because why” each time you do this.

Gradually introduce a name for this sentence – it is the “summary statement”. In later grades this will be called the “enthymeme”, but for simplicity, during these grades, refer to it consistently as the “summary statement”.

Relationships (the What + What)
When students understand the idea behind the structure of the enthymeme, begin to spend more time focusing specifically on the “What” part of it. Use the barbell for your visual and emphasize that this part of the statement emphasizes the relationship between two nouns/pronouns (reinforce the grammar). The bar on the barbell symbolizes the relationship between those two items. The relationship is a verb or a verb phrase. In the early grades, keep this relationship to a verb when first teaching the structure. At this stage the 2 variables should usually be strictly simple nouns or pronouns. As students work through the process, prepositions will be added for specificity. Students can certainly write and understand sentences with prepositions and verb phrases, but remember, the important thing to emphasize here is the structure. So for those purposes keep the “what” statements simple at first.

This can be introduced and practiced in a number of different ways. You can write simple statements on the board, (“I love dogs”) and have students identify the parts. Have them identify these in terms of the “first what” and the “second what”. Always make sure students understand that the “what’s” must be nouns or pronouns.

Once students can identify the parts of the “what statement” easily, do different drills so that they can practice making their own relationships. For example, show them a picture from a book or a magazine and have them identify all of the relationships they see, or that are implied, (“The dog is by the door”, “The man loves the woman”). Be sure to analyze these relationships to make sure they are correct. Are both “what’s” nouns or pronouns? For example if they say, “The house is big,” it is important for them to identify that “big” is not a noun or a pronoun, therefore, it cannot be a “what”. There is no relationship between two things being described.

=Getting to the “Why”=

After students are comfortable with identifying and creating “what” statements, it is time to complete the process of making a good statement by including the “why”. Most “why” statements can be completed by answering the implied question about the “what” statement. For example, If a student says, “I love dogs,” and you say, “Why?”, the student may say, “Because they can protect my house.” Going back to the original discourse you taught when originally introducing the “What because why”, you can phrase it as such and then have them make the sentence.

Kid: I love my dogs.

Teacher: Why?

Kid: Because they protect my house.

Enthymeme: I love my dogs because they protect my house.

What + what = why

You will see that by now the enthymeme should be becoming obviously formulaic to the students, no matter what the age. After this point, it should be easy and natural for you and your students to discuss the enthymeme in any or all of these terms;

What plus what because why What plus what equals why What + what = why W+W=Y

Until this point, we have only discussed teaching structure. In the early grades, the structure should initially be focused on before trying to tie it in with other class materials or a writing assignment. It cannot be stressed enough that this structure and eventually the process should be internalized. Review and re-teach all parts often, no matter what the age of the students.

What plus what because why
By second grade, students are ready to understand the structure of the enthymeme, which is "What plus what because why", also known as "W+W-> Y". During their early years, the first "what" will usually always be "I". The plus represents the relationship between "I" and the other variable ("I love dogs" - the word "love" is the +, it represents the relationship between "I" and "dogs").
 * The Structure**

The "because why" portion represents the cause of what is essentially a cause and effect relationship. If I say "I love my dog because she protects our house", the "why" (she protects our house) is the cause of the relationship (I love my dog).

This should be reinforced often after it is first introduced.

=The “I”= The "I" is an important part of beginning writing, especially for developing personal narrative, which are usually students' first writing experiences. It is the foundation of their personal narratives throughout elementary. In an "I" enthymeme, the structure of "what plus what because why" has been emphasized with the 1st "what" being the pronoun "I". For example; "I love my dog because he protects our house."

When learning the "I", students learn to introduce themselves and develop a basic narrative that does this for them time and again. They also gradually learn that the "I" is adaptable, depending on the other variables in the enthymeme. For example, a basic "I" narrative might go like this; "I am 6 years old and I live in a small community in Alaska. I have a big family with 3 brothers. My favorite thing to do is play outside."

With practice throughout elementary, the "I" develops and students learn to adapt it to the other variables in their enthymeme, an "I" narrative might go like this; "I am 8 years old and I live in a small community in Alaska. I love dogs and I have three of them. My favorite dog is Scooby."

This type of personal "I" narrative leads nicely into the above enthymeme of "I love my dog because it protects our house."

Consistent practice in working with and developing a general "I" narrative helps students to have a standard narrative easily available to them when writing like this.

The "I" enthymeme
As discussed above, the "I" narrative ties into the "I" enthymeme (example of "I love my dog because it protects our house."). The "I" enthymeme is usually a personal narrative of some kind, and the first variable in the "what plus what because why" is "I".

=The Organic Outline=

When introducing the organic outline for the first time, simply introduce the name and the structure as it relates to the enthymeme. For example, write the enthymeme, “I love my dogs because they can protect my house,” on the board. Then set up the table, placing the elements of the statement in the appropriate places. Write a general statement in each column, relating simply that these represent paragraphs. In the “I” column, write a general statement such as, “This paragraph could be about you and your experiences with dogs.” In the second column write, “This paragraph could be about dogs you have had,” or “This paragraph could be about how to train a dog to be a good guard dog.” In the last column write, “This paragraph could be about a guard dog you know of who protected a house.”
 * I || my dogs || protecting my house ||
 * This paragraph should be your "I" narrative and some information about how you feel about your dogs. || This paragraph could be about dogs you've had in the past or currently, or information about how dogs feel protective about their owners. || This paragraph could be about dogs you know of who protected a house - tell what happened. ||

This is a very simple exercise to go through with the class. You can do this with many different enthymemes. Very soon the students will get the idea and begin pitching ideas about what to put into each column. When teaching this process to elementary students, it is a good idea to always start the organic outline by making this general statement in each column. Later, when they begin to brainstorm and add specific details to these columns, these statements help to keep them focused on what kind of information is needed.

=Practice Brainstorming=

Over several days or even weeks (i.e. while you are doing units is okay), teach some of the various brainstorming techniques, as appropriate to the level of the students you are working with:

(1) **problems:** what problems might occur with a given situation? A problem might be anything that can cause a bad situation, result from a situation (whether bad or not), or make a bad situation difficult to solve. For example, “You are traveling by car from Tok to Anchorage. What problems could occur?”

(2) **news questions** – who, what, where, when, why, how. Have the students brainstorm each separately. “What” will already have been covered under “problems.”

(3) **categories** (college majors) – pass out a list of the majors in a university (English, Engineering, Business, Biology), and have students go down the list, trying to list problems (from a situation you give them) according to as many majors as possible.

(4) **hitchhiking** – jumping onto an idea someone brings up. For example, if a student mentions safety, then other students can also brainstorm safety problems. (This technique is closely related to “funneling.”)

(5) **free association** – have them write down nouns (not associated with what is being studied) and then see how those free-associated nouns might apply to the unit being addressed. For example, if you are doing a unit on wolves and in a free association list a student writes the noun, “clothes”, it could lead to a discussion about what kind of clothing wolf fur has been used in.

(6) **reversed perception** – look at the opposite viewpoint and then turn it around. For example, if you are doing a nutrition unit and want to identify problems with nutrition, then first brainstorm good nutrition practices; then turn them around to look at their bad sides.

(7) **funneling** – by far the most important technique, herewith the students take a general idea and funnel it down to something specific. If specificity does not result, then take a funneled idea and funnel //it// down. For example, if we have a vague topic like transportation, you can ask the students to brainstorm problems with transportation.

__**Example of brainstorming for problems and funneling:**__

Transportation problems: Problems with trucks, busses, trains, planes, ships, boats, airplanes, helicopters, cars. You can choose one and have them funnel it to something more specific.

Problems with trucks: maintenance, driving, maps, long hills, loading, unloading, boxes shifting, theft, overheating, getting stuck in the sand, flat tires, over-inflated tires, Bedouins taking hostages, sabotage by the rebels in Eritrea, payment for drivers, animals in the road, kids in the road, broken headlights, broken taillights. When they are done here, have them funnel again.

Problems with truck maintenance: Flat tires, over-inflated tires, broken headlights, broken taillights, engines going dead on the climb from the sea to the plateau, can’t see the driver behind you,[1] some mechanics may only have metric tools and it’s an American truck, sand in the differentials, burst radiators, broken hoses, broken belts, broken brakes.

=Using the enthymeme to write=

At this point in elementary school (by 1st grade) you have spent time introducing, practicing, and reviewing the structure of the enthymeme. Students should be very familiar with the enthymeme, and what its purpose is. It is now time to apply it to something real and have them use it as a writing tool. In the early grades, much of the writing is (creative writing) and personal narrative writing. You will want to do content enthymeme papers only after the students have had some experiences with the personal experience papers (by 3rd grade). Even in the fourth, and fifth grades, much of the early writing should be devoted to the personal narratives before going into these. Certainly in fourth and fifth grades you will be doing more and more content enthymeme type papers (expository, response to literature, research).

In the first grade, you are teaching the structure for the first time. This will have to be practiced a great deal before you launch into writing a paper using the structure. In the 2nd through 5th grades, you will be reviewing the structure, and can begin using the enthymeme to begin writing papers much earlier in the year.

**Writing a content enthymeme**
A content enthymeme differs from an "I" enthymeme in that both of the "what" variables are nouns. Content enthymemes are usually used in expository writing, response to literature, and research writing. It lends itself very well to all subject areas across the curriculum. Here is an example of a content enthymeme; "Orcas migrate to Alaska in the summers because the sea mammals they eat are there at that time of year."

Following is an example of how a content enthymeme might be developed and used in the classroom. = =

Content enthymeme process example

 * Step One: The material**

A content enthymeme is one in which something is described or explained. For example, if you are doing a unit on wolves, you might want the students to arrive at and work with the enthymeme, “Wolf fur is a good insulator because the hairs are different lengths.” There are any number of projects you may have done with your class that ranged from stories about wolves, the study of a wolf’s anatomy, a talk by a wildlife biologist, looking at a stuffed wolf or a wolf fur, looking at wolf art, etc. The class may also have done activities that familiarized them with the type of climate a wolf has to live in. A local cultural tie-in might involve a talk or demonstration by a local or native sewer who uses wolf ruffs in parkas or mukluks. These are just some of many different studies that an elementary class might do as part of a wolf unit, a wildlife unit, or even a unit on Alaska, or a novel like __Stone Soup__, __Balto__, __Woodsong__, or __Hatchet__. As any elementary teacher knows, the possibilities are endless.

At some point in the later part of your unit, you will want your students will have enough of a familiarization with wolves so that you can guide them toward the enthymeme you have selected.


 * Step Two: Brainstorm**

Use any of the brainstorming techniques that have been described in this book, or any of your own to begin your students on a brainstorming session. Remember, you want to set it up so that they are likely to come up with a list that will help them get to the enthymeme. For example, depending on the material and the age of the students you might say, “What are some problems people have living in a northern climate?” One of the obvious answers will be staying warm. If you land on that as a problem, you might then direct them to brainstorm ways people stayed warm before the days of Gortex, down parkas, or heated automobiles.


 * Step three: Grade Ideas**

After some brainstorming, you will probably have a long list of facts and ideas in response to your brainstorming prompt. It is now time to take the students through the grading of these ideas. Here is where you begin to strongly bring in the idea of audience. Would somebody else find that interesting? Usually “somebody else” is too vague. For 2nd graders you might ask if a 2nd grader in Florida would find it interesting. Present your supposed audience any way that makes it helpful for the students think about. For younger students, you may grade the ideas by simply using “yes”, “no”, or “maybe” (don’t let them use “maybe” too much). As students get older and more used to the process, you can refine your grading system with more specific criteria and use letter grades or numbered points to represent your criteria. Don’t forget to use funneling and implied questions to try to improve or refine some of the ideas.


 * Step four: Prioritize Ideas**

Now that the grading is done, you definitely want to get rid of all the “no’s” or failing grade ideas. If you have only a few A or “yes” ideas, and many B, C, or “maybe” ideas, try some funneling or implied questions to improve those ideas. Make sure you have a decent sized list and begin prioritizing them. You know they are good ideas at this point so prioritize them based on what the students know most about, or what would be easiest to research.


 * Step five: Identify a relationship**

Your brainstorm list may include terms like “wolf fur” and “wolf fur is warm”. Through a number of different techniques or questioning you want to direct the students to your pre-selected “what” statement, “Wolf fur is a good insulator.” You can also set up scenarios, like, “What problems might you encounter if you were trying to walk or take a dog team a long distance on a –30 day?” Through some directed questioning, you can guide the class toward a discussion about frost bite or frost buildup on eyelashes, etc. They probably have some shared experiences with this anyway. Use any method you like, but within 5 to 10 minutes, you should be able to discuss your prioritized list and come up with “Wolf fur is a good insulator.” Once you have it, or the idea has surfaced, write it on the board and ask the students if they recognize anything special about the structure of that sentence. By now they should be familiar enough with the structure of the enthymeme that at least a few will immediately say it is a “what statement”, or more likely a “what plus what” sentence. Even as you praise the good subject idea, reinforce the structure.


 * Step six: Write the enthymeme**

Now that you have a “what plus what” statement, it is time to guide the student through implied questions (they should be familiar with this term, or call it “IQ’s”). The first obvious question is, “Why is wolf fur a good insulator?” Some will say things like, “because it’s warm,”, while others may remember some specific information from your studies and be able to get right to the part about the hairs. If they don’t, “warm” is on the right track and is easy to funnel down for specificity. Asking the implied “why” and completing the enthymeme will be a quick step.


 * Step seven:**

**Assess the enthymeme**
Now that you have an enthymeme, reinforce the importance of the structures yet again by having the students assess the enthymeme according to the criteria. You may have this “checklist” on the wall for easy reference. They will eventually memorize some or all of it. Write the enthymeme on the board and break it into parts. Identify the part that is “what” statement, and the part that is the “why statement”. You can do this with brackets or simply separating the parts. Have them also identify the “what” statement as it relates to the barbell. Identify the first “what”, the second “what”, and the relationship between the two (a verb or verb phrase). First focus on the “what” statement (Wolf fur is a good insulator) and ask, “Is it a sentence?” Depending on the grade level and how you have worked on sentence fragments, run-ons, etc, you may ask the question differently. For upper grades you may ask if it has a subject and a predicate. Next ask if it has two variables. In other words, two “what’s”. At this point that should be obvious. Ask if both variables are nouns. How you determine this will depend on how you have taught students to identify nouns.

It is extremely helpful if you have them assess a wrong enthymeme once in awhile. For example, if you came up with the enthymeme, “Wolf fur is warm because of the length of the hairs,” students would determine that the variable “warm” wouldn’t work because it is a describing word, and not a noun. You could then use funneling to specify that wolf fur is “a good insulator”. It is important that they practice this. If they always have a good enthymeme to analyze, they will gradually discard the assessment and assume that all enthymemes you come up with as a class are good ones.

Once you have assessed the “what” statement, you need to assess the “why” statement. The obvious first question is, “Does it have the word ‘because’?” This must be stressed as important, so always ask it first. Next ask if the “why” is short. At this point your students will need some basis to make the distinction – shorter than what? Short doesn’t necessarily mean one word, but it should be a simplified statement about a big idea. “Hairs are different lengths” is a very basic idea and obviously will have to be explained more fully in the paper. What you want to avoid is writing the paper within the enthymeme. One of the most important questions is “Does the ‘why’ repeat either of the variables?” Again, it is sometimes useful to put up wrong enthymemes so the students will have an opportunity to understand this. For example, if you came up with the enthymeme, “Wolf fur is a good insulator because it is warm,” you would find that you had a good what statement. However, upon examining the Y statement, you would be able to show that “warm” simply repeats the idea of a good insulator – they are the same thing. This is circular reasoning. You got the “warm” by asking an implied question about the “what” statement. To get away from the circular reasoning, ask an implied question about your result, “Why is it warm?” to get a more specific answer.


 * Step eight: The organic outline**

Once you have arrived at and assessed your enthymeme, clear your board and write your enthymeme at the top. Students are now familiar with the layout of the outline. For younger students, put the columns on the board and ask what goes in each column. For older students you can begin by asking how many columns you need to make. Once the columns are labeled, go through and make your major statement at the top of each one, just as you have done in practice. At the top of the “wolf fur” column, write “This paragraph will be about describing the fur on different parts of a wolf’s body.” At the top of the “good insulator” column, you could write, “This paragraph will be about how insulation works.” At the top of “hairs are different lengths” column, you could write, “This paragraph will describe how and why the hair around the neck of a wolf is very good as a clothing insulator on humans.” These statements help to keep the comments focused. In the younger grades, be sure to include that extra “misc.” column. Even with the general statements guiding input, there will still be a few students who miss the mark a little, but are offering up information they remember from the unit. The extra column allows you to include that input and recognize their contribution. Depending on your students and their experience with the process, you may later decide to drop that extra column and deal with the unrelated input in another way. Begin soliciting input from the class. It is not necessary that it is in order, or that you focus on only one part at a time. You can make the decision yourself where to put the material they offer, and later you can ask them where in the outline a detail should go. Generally, students are comfortable with offering up random material. However, as they have more experience with the process and understand clearly the function of the organic outline, they will naturally begin to focus on one element at a time. In the early grades, you will want to list their information in the form of sentences. For instance, if a student says, “The hair is longer at the neck,” you may write, “A wolf’s has longer hairs around the neck.” In later papers, you can abbreviate these lists saying something like, “long neck hair”.
 * wolf fur || good insulator || hairs are different lengths ||
 * This paragraph will be about describing the fur on different parts of a wolf's body. || This paragraph will be about how insulation works || This paragraph will describe how and why the hair around the neck of a wolf is very good as a clothing insulator on humans ||

Fill up the outline as much as possible. If you know there is information they are forgetting, ask more directed questions to get the input you want. Remember, the length of the outline approximates the length of the paper. This will differ depending on the age of the students.


 * Step nine: Organize the elements.**

You want the paper to be organized so that it begins by first discussing the more general ideas, and ending with the most specific ideas. Ask the students to look at the W+W=Y elements in the enthymeme and decide which is the biggest idea and which is the most specific idea. This should be fairly obvious. Use the donut analogy or any other method you like to help them see this. The enthymeme itself will remain the same, however, the order of big to small will determine what order the elements will appear in the paper. In “Wolf fur is a good insulator because of the length of the hairs,” insulation is probably the most general topic. That element will come first in the paper. Wolf fur would be next, followed by the length of the hairs. After you and the class determine this you can reinforce it by writing 1,2,3 over the various parts in the enthymeme, or writing the numbers in the appropriate place in the column headings of the outline.


 * Step ten: Organize the paragraphs**

Take the lists in each column and determine how you will organize them. For younger students, you may simply tell them how. For older students, you may have them make the determination of whether to use big to small, first to last, or spatial. For this type of paper, big to small will almost always be a good way to organize. Begin to number the ideas in the list in the order they should appear. Remember, it is ok to add ideas at this point. Just number them with decimal points so that you can fit them in.

Once you have numbered the lists in each category, it important to realize that at this stage, from the point of ideas and organization, the paper is done. All that is left to do is the actual writing. For this, students can practice and build skills in sentence fluency, vocabulary, voice, and conventions.


 * Step eleven:**

**The class paragraph**
In the early grades with the first papers, you will want to write your papers together. Later, some students may be ready to write on their own from the outline. By the end of fifth grade, all students should be able to write the paper on their own from a finished organic outline.

To write a paragraph as a class, choose any element (it doesn’t have to be the first). If these are younger students and you have made your organic outline details in sentence form, you will simply begin writing the sentences in order, in paragraph form on the board, soliciting help from the students. If you have written abbreviated or shortened details, now is a good time to practice sentence structure. For example, with a detail like “long neck hair”, you may simply ask how we could make that idea into a sentence. Later, when teaching fluency and revising the paragraph, you can change the sentence. In the early grades, this is an excellent time to get some real writing done, while in later grades it is also the perfect opportunity to apply the ideas of sentence fluency, word choice, voice, and conventions to a real piece of writing that the students themselves have generated, without having to worry about ideas and organization at the same time – because of the time you have spent developing a good enthymeme and organic outline, you know those elements are already solid.