After a student has both selected a topic and learned how to narrow the focus, it is time for him to practice developing (or elaborating on) his ideas. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to support your students in this area. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains.
Explicit Instruction
If you are intervening to support your student's ability to develop ideas, you should start by explicitly teaching the skill. This sounds like:
Activity A: It Happened To Me
This strategy is a great way to get a student to identify the most important events in his story. Once he has identified those events, he can know both where he needs to elaborate and where he needs to eliminate (i.e., delete extraneous information). Read about how Ruth Culham (2003) uses her own writing to teach students how to develop ideas.
Culham, R. (2003). 6 + 1 Traits of writing. New York, NY: Scholastic.
It Happened to Me In Action
Share and talk over a story with the student. Construct a chronological outline of the main events. Compare the outline with the final product. Then decide, along with the student, which events should stay and which should go. Then, reconstruct the outline, elaborating upon each idea. I'm going to share a story with you. Then, I'll show you the outline I first used to construct the story. Next, we'll figure out which events need to stay in the story and which events we don't need. Finally, we'll reconstruct the outline, using only the ideas we intend to develop.
Activity B: Leave it Out
If a student is struggling to identify places in his writing where he needs to expand upon an idea, try this strategy. First, rewrite a story your student knows, or a story that you have read with your student. Leave out events and details that are important to the central idea of the story. Share the story with the student, and then ask what is missing. Read the original story again, and discuss which version of the story is better and why. Engage your student in a discussion about how he could elaborate on his own writing to include details that support the central idea.
Leave it Out In Action
Teacher: I'm going to tell you a story that you know, and I want you to tell me how it's different this time. Ready? (Teacher tells story of The Lion King but leaves out every part mentioning the influence of Scar, the uncle lion.) What was different?
Student: You didn't even mention Scar, who is really important!
Teacher: Why?
Student: He's the one that killed the dad and made Simba flee!
Teacher: What does this tell you about the importance of elaborating on your ideas?
Student: Well, if the writer had told us why Simba left, which was a central part of the story, it would all make sense. Without it, I don't quite get why he ran away.
Teacher: You are right! We need to make sure that we include important information about our central ideas. This is called elaborating. Let's see if we can elaborate on your ideas now.
Activity C: In Her Shoes
If a student is struggling to identify places in his or her writing that require expansion, intervene with In Her Shoes. This activity is a great way for a student to develop and elaborate on important ideas.
Bring in a pair of shoes and an artifact (such as a tea wrapper, a coin, a photograph, etc.). Ask the student to imagine whom the shoes and artifact may have belonged to, and to tell you all about the person who owned them (or to write down this information). If the student struggles, use prompts to get him to think about the person. Use questions that encourage the student to use all five senses to think about the person (e.g., What did the person probably smell like? If you touched the person's skin, what would it feel like?).
Click here to read a student's story.
In Her Shoes in Action
Now watch In Her Shoes being implemented with a struggling writer. As you watch, consider how the teacher uses guiding questions to get the student to further develop her ideas.
Lutz, K. (2015). Creative story - shoes. Retrieved from https://kristalutz20.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/creative-story-shoes/
Think about the following scenario, which takes place after a teacher has explicitly taught a student strategies for selecting a topic:
Teacher: "Let's elaborate on your work. What else can you add to develop this idea?"
Student: "I don't know. Nothing."
In such a case, what might you do?
When you are planning your lessons, you should anticipate that your student will make errors throughout. Here are a series of prompts that you can use to respond to errors. Keep in mind that all students are different, and that students might respond better to some types of feedback than to others.
| Level of Support | Description of Scaffold | Script |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest Scaffold | Check your Resources. As you continue to use these interventions, your student should have lots of ideas in his notebook to choose from. Ask the student to refer back to the notebook to see examples of how he elaborated on his ideas. | "Look in your notebook for ideas. What else do you think you could say about this topic?" |
| Medium Scaffold | Back it Up. If a student is struggling, back up your process. Ask the student probing questions in order to help him to elaborate on his ideas before having him write them. | "I can see that you are stuck. What else can you say about your animal's diet?" |
| Highest Scaffold | Step by Step. If the student continues to struggle, walk him through each step, providing examples along the way. | "The first step to developing ideas is identifying where we can say more. For example, here I wrote all about my dog, Molly. I wrote about why she is my favorite dog and the kinds of things she likes. I realize, though, that I haven't even described what she looked like! I could write more about her appearance. Now, let's see what you've already written, so we can figure out where you could say more." |
If your student struggles to meet your objective, there are various techniques that you might employ in order to adjust the activity to your student's needs.
| Activity | Description of Strategy | Script |
|---|---|---|
| All Activities | The Five Ws. If a student struggles to elaborate on his ideas, use the five W's (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How) to get him to think through how he might elaborate. | "You've told me what an omnivore is. Now, let's think through other ways you can elaborate on this idea. Why does an omnivore eat both plants and animals? What does an omnivore eat? How does it get its food? |
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