Getting ideas for responding to a writing prompt

Colleagues:

I would welcome your thoughts and ideas about how adult ed teachers can help students get ideas for responding to a writing prompt. So often, students don't know where to start. I get this question a lot from teachers. Would you kindly share your ideas and strategies?

Thanks so much!  

Mary Ann Corley

Comments

I'll start off, Mary Ann, hoping to spark other responses here.

To help students address challenging writing prompts, I used to tell them, "Compare the topic to something you know. Use analogies." For example, voting is like .... a maze/ a flower? /a mountain?/my family? In other words, if  students know something at all to the topic, connect is to something they know. After that, they can simply describe the comparisons!  Good andragogy!

Let's hear more ideas! Leecy

http://www.slideshare.net/reinashay/abc-d-strategy-for-attacking-prompts   describes one that I think is good.   (If you google abcd writing prompt you'll also get a PDF version of it and assorted otehr discussions.) 

The ferreting out of the "content that counts" in the "attack" section is somethign worth practicing...

Hello,

The first step in responding to a prompt involves not writing, but reading-- our learners need to understand what the prompt is asking them to do as writers.  There is a nice piece in the Purdue Owl resources called "Understanding the Prompt":  https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/2/52/

The suggestions here give learners a strategy, a roadmap to follow, that triggers their writing.  The last step-- putting the prompt into one's own words and acting as if one is explaining it to another is a helpful strategy-- it gives the learner ownership of the prompt.  

I'm also a believer in using writing frames, especially with lower level learners-- a frame gives the leaner a place to "hang" his or her ideas!

Kathy Houghton, Literacy New York

Thanks to Leecy, Susan, and Kathy for your good ideas--and for the references to great resources! I'd love to hear from others about strategies for helping students form their thoughts before responding to a writing prompt. One activity I like is the use of a discussion web. With this approach, you make three columns (on the board, on a computer screen, or on a handout that you give students). In the middle column, you write a controversial topic/prompt. The column to the left of the prompt is the plus (+) column, and the column to the right of the prompt is the minus (-) column. Then you conduct a discussion, asking students to suggest reasons to support the prompt (the pros), and reasons not to support the prompt (the cons). Accept all student contributions without judgment. Now students have many different ideas to use in writing their first drafts. I like this technique because it gets students thinking and talking. But I'm still looking for other ideas. Please share strategies that have worked for you.

Thanks so much!

-Mary Ann 

This idea would not necessarily work for the kind of extended responses required for HSE tests but may be helpful in other situations.

Enrique Lerma developed a brainstorming technique using 7 categories to help students get ideas for writing about a prompt. He calls it PHEEGET which stands for People, Health & Health Care, Education, Economics, Business, Governments & Politics, Entertainment & Sports, and Technology & Science. Students think about what they can say about a topic that relates to all or some of the categories. If my explanation is confusing, I have the draft of a paper he wrote about it that maybe Leecy could post.

First, thank you so much Di for remembering my brainstorming tool!

We all know the difficulties students encounter while trying to develop ideas during the brainstorming segment of the writing process.  Back in 1995, I began to wonder if I could offer my students something besides the usual brainstorming methods.  Too many of them were wasting valuable time while brainstorming for their GED writing prompts.  I re-read a large stack of their in-class essays and identified several recurring issues in their works.  Then I developed an acronym for them to easily remember for their writing projects.  

As Di mentions, PHEEGET gives students several broad issues for students to ponder while trying to develop ideas for their essays.  Instead of brainstorming "out of the blue" students have starting points for brainstorming.  Dr. Stephanie Engelmann conducted a study in her adult education program on Long Island and proved the effectiveness of PHEEGET in 2013, and adopted it for use in her adult ed programs.  English Instructor, Amy Fox, of Elizabethtown College also uses it in her freshman and sophomore English courses.

If anyone is interested in the documents and Power Point, please let me know and I will gladly share them with you.  I am certain it will help many of your students!

Enrique and Di, thanks for talking more about PHEEGET. You might give us a rhyme to help us pronounce that properly.

I remember introducing my writing courses with the question, "Where does writing happen?" New students, of course, would always point to their hands. Of course, writing happens in our minds. The hands just interpret. That is why brainstorming is such an important part of the writing process, and visual maps can really help, too, with some learners.

Since we can't attach files here, I would be delighted to post the PHEEGET information/materials you both mentioned on one of my sites and share the link to those here for you to use as share. Can't wait!

Leecy (leecywise@gmail.com)