This semester has reaffirmed that students who complete a graphic organizer are better essay writers. They have pre-organized their ideas and many even do a quick check to verify that everything fits where it should and there are no duplicates of the same idea. They are not “winging” it. When students write down random ideas and call it an outline, their writing gets very random.
Next semester, I am going to go even heavier on the graphic organizer. I will only accept their essays if they have completed their thesis statement, three pieces of evidence and the supporting details on their graphic organizer. For some writing assignments, I have elongated a graphic organizer to cover two pages so that they do not run out of writing space. Most of the students who had learning gaps this semester had thinking learning gaps; they did not have enough evidence or they did not have details to support their thesis. Some students had grammar learning gaps but even then I could understand their ideas or lack of ideas.
I want to reduce their revisions or rather make their revisions to change from being proficient to above proficient instead of going from below proficient to barely proficient. I hope to raise the bar for them.
Education with Technology Harry G. Tuttle 
Good post. We have been using graphic organizers with elementary students for many years, and we have found them to be very useful for children. In addition to using a graphic organizer to plan a piece of writing, teachers also can use graphic organizers as a reading comprehension assessment tool. The students would complete a web. story map, or Venn diagram, for example, after reading a passage. They graphic organizer could be tailored to assess the students’ understanding of character, setting, and plot of a story.
– Dave
Dave,
Thanks for sharing the use of graphic organizers for reading. As science colleague uses graphic organizers/concept maps for pre and post testing on science concepts.
Harry
Dave,
Thanks for sharing the use of graphic organizers for reading. As science colleague uses graphic organizers/concept maps for pre and post testing on science concepts.
Harry
There are some people who seem to have a natural ability to organize their thoughts mentally in this manner, but most need to write them out in order to remember what they will include in their set of examples and support statements. My daughter has been reluctant to write, but she is now taking a writing improvement course at the Sylvan Learning Center. This is the very method used there. Thanks for including this!
Suzanne,
Thanks for sharing that Sylvan Learning Center uses a very structured approach to writing. When I used to correct students’ 11th grade essays, I could often tell who their teacher was just by the structured format the students used. State test aim for success, not creativity, so a structured format often works best.
Harry