A National Writing Project Course
(Next session will be offered December 10th at 11 am EST live in Zoom. A digital badge from The National Writing Project for two completion hours will be awarded to participants needing professional development hours. Also note that participants can bundle this 2-Hour Intensive with the Teach It “Write” Self-Paced Course for a total of twelve PD hours)
ENROLL HERE
Getting students to capture their brilliant thinking on paper takes yeoman’s work, a bit of alchemy, and often, divine intervention.
But when it comes to getting students to think cogently on paper, I often like to ponder this essential question: what if we taught composition like Bob Ross teaches painting?
Here’s a dirty little secret about Bob Ross … he loved to teach with templates (he referred to them as heuristics).
In fact, he only ever used and instructed one template, which is known as the wet-on-wet technique.
In asking our essential question, one thing is clear: if teachers are to teach composition like Bob Ross teaches painting, these things must happen:
✏️ The teacher embraces their role as the expert writer in the classroom and “paints” with their students
✏️ The teacher equips students with groundbreaking templates that can be uniformly employed across the expository modes of literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, argument, persuasion, synthesis, and even research
There is a fundamental difference between the assigning of writing and the direct, explicit teaching of it.
When we get to the proverbial canvas and easel and “paint” with our students, we are teaching at the highest level.
And this is how the act of writing gets demystified for our students.
During our two hours together, we will explore how my templates of the declarative/inverted thesis, as well as the syllogistic method, can be used to construct every academic paper a student ever writes.
But like Bob Ross, we’re going to bring back the joy to composition by exploring how difficult concepts like teaching line of reasoning can be done through children’s stories, edible templates and graphic organizers, as well as through gamification strategies.
To get a sense, take a sneak peek at something we like to call The Yarn Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpwpfe-shbo&t=1023s
This is just one of the many engaging strategies we have up our sleeve to ensure that your students continue to grow, mature, and flourish as writers.