Dr. Louis' Blog

The Diagnostic Essay and Dr. Louis' Fifteen Rules

At the beginning of the school year, teachers are wise to diagnose their students’ writing abilities in order to create lesson plans that enhance students’ strengths and improve their weaknesses. To get the most out of this diagnostic, I assign the writing activity on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday somewhere within the first four to seven days of school after the classes have somewhat leveled and late students have arrived.

I have found that the best diagnostic to give students in any grade level is a personal narrative prompt. I’m not a fan of “tell me what you did this summer,” because I want to hear their voices and learn about their personalities and their attitudes as well as their ability to write.

Providing students with four to five topics and allowing them to select the one that resonates with them offers students options. In addition, this suggestion gives you a break from reading the same topic 180 times! We have many topics from which to choose in the JSWP’s Teaching the Personal and Fictional Essay guide, and I have extracted and listed a few below to get you thinking.

Also, at the beginning of the school year, the last thing a teacher wants to do is to score 180 essays when she or he hasn’t even taught the students a skill. What you want to do is quickly diagnose, and you can do that in a one-page document.

Remember to make this a contained assignment: scope, length, time -- you simply want to get to know your students and their current writing habits and abilities.

• The Diagnostic Assignment
  
  • Give the students one sheet of paper with 25 lines. Limit this assignment to a two- to three-lined introduction, two body paragraphs, and a three-lined conclusion. The objective is for you to read and diagnose the assignment quickly without scoring it.
  • I like this assignment to be written by hand to 1) lessen the number of words in a 25-lined document; 2) observe my students' ability to write and punctuate correctly rather than technology's predictive software and spelling/grammar fixes; and 3) prepare myself for handwriting differences among students. However, if you want it typed, set a maximum word count of 100 words for the introduction; 400 words for two body paragraphs; and 50 words for the conclusion. (Keep it close to 500 for your own sanity.)
  • To make this assignment more enjoyable for the students and you, give them three to five prompts from which to choose.
  • Sample Prompts -- Write about a time when . . .
    
    • you were happy
    • you felt free
    • you didn't feel free
    • your life changed
    • you did something you're proud of
    • you made a good decision
    • you helped someone
    • you stood up for something you believed in
    • you lost something
    • you found something
    • you made someone laugh
  • Time
    
    • If you have a fifty-minute class, allow two class periods (do not allow students to take this assignment home).
    • If you have a 90-minute class, have them write the piece in one class period.
  • Say to your students, "I want you to show me your best writing so that we do not have to review and repeat skills that you learned when you were less experienced writers or that you have already mastered!"
    
    • "Are you going to take a grade?" They ask.
    • Your reply to start the year with guidelines. "Anything that I assign to you, scholars, is fair game for my taking a grade. Everything I ask you to do is to prepare your young minds for success. I expect you always to do your best whether I take a grade or not. But plan for me to assess everything you do in this course. And I do not want to hear that question again because I will not respond to it."
  • The Diagnostic Process and "Dr. Louis' Fifteen Rules"
    
    • Open "Dr. Louis' Fifteen Rules" spreadsheet (email info@janescaffer.com to get your copy) and export your rosters onto the spreadsheet. Use a different tab on the spreadsheet for each class.
    • Remember, do not score these diagnostic pieces. Rather, for each student, place a checkmark on the "Fifteen Rules" spreadsheet for each student's top three most common errors. You may also add one or two rules to the list that correspond to recurring student errors but try to keep the list under twenty items in order to manage your students more effectively.
  • Setting the Stage for Improvement
    
    • The Collective: Post on your wall, bulletin board, or display board the "Teacher's Three Big Rules," which you derive from the most common student errors you discover from the students' collective diagnostic assignment.
      
      • These are the rules that you want the entire class to address for every piece of writing. They may also be associated with your grade level standards and approved by the administration.
      • I titled this display "Dr. Louis' Three Big Rules." You can replace the word "Teacher's" with your name.
    • The Individual: Then, give each student an index card with his or her top three errors.
      
      • These individual rules are different from the "Teacher's Three Big Rules."
      • For self-contained classes, I tape the index card to the students' desks.
      • For students who move from class to class, I printed a handout and had the students put the handout in the grammar section of their notebooks.
      • If digital, they would have an Excel spreadsheet, and the first tab would have a student's three rules. The remaining tabs would consist of their grammar journal lessons.
  • Scores and Corrections
    
    • Students value what you value. There must be consequences to these errors and rewards for mastery. Here is my point structure:
    • "Teacher's Three Big Rules" -- 10 points
      
      • In one essay or writing assignment, I can assume that if the student makes this error once, that student will continue to make the error, so I count off one time and place a check mark where it continues to occur.
      • Students must submit complete sentences with their errors corrected and highlighted withing 48 hours to earn three points back. If students do not submit their corrections, I take an additional 10 points off the entire assignment.
    • "Individual Students' Three Rules" -- 5 points per error
      
      • Since these errors are specific to the students, I need them to pay close attention and get rid of these bad habits. For this reason, they can add up quickly.
      • Students must submit complete sentences with their errors corrected and highlighted within 48 hours to earn three points back per error. If students do not submit their corrections, I take another 10 points off the entire assignment.
    • Miscellaneous Errors -- 2 points per error
      
      • These errors might be typos or oversights, but they still count because we want our students to proofread their work.
      • Eventually, if these miscellaneous errors recur, they might replace one of the students' "three rules."
    • Rewarding Students
      
      • Over the course of the year, when a student masters one of his or her rules, I give that student fifteen bonus points on the assignment, and a gold star is added to the spreadsheet.
      • I then replace the mastered rule with a new one to be mastered.
      • Each student always has three rules.
      • At first the rules will be based on errors, but as the students progress, you can also give them style-type rules, such as "create a parallel structure" or try your hand at "alliteration."

Dear Dr. Louis,

My takeaways from today's Train-the-Trainer: Narrative session are: I'm seeing how important it is to teach the difference between CD/CM and continually model. I am also very excited to write a narrative I can use as a model with my students!

I do have the following questions:

1. Why is the Person, Place, and Thing (PPT) considered narrative writing? Can it be considered expository?
2. For students who are dependent on the structure, how do you get them to wean off? What does that process look like?

Thank you,

Melissa F.
English Teacher
Hayward, California

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Hi, Melissa,

Here are the answers to your questions.

1. The PPT is considered narrative because it's a personal decision, and the writer is providing evidence with anecdotes of what made that PPT special of not special to his/her personal observations, experiences, and/or interactions. If the writer were writing about Thomas Jefferson, it would be expository.
2. Student by student. Show them my memoir, your memoir. Show them how to weave with their own writing -- take their structure and show them how to combine CDs and CMs in a sentence -- you have to model this with their writing -- student by student.

Keep reading and writing!

Dr. Louis

Hi, Dr. Louis,

I’ve been working with my students using the Jane Schaffer approach -- that is, focusing on CDs, CMs, decoding prompts, and writing 2+:1 chunks. The next step, with which I need your expertise, is to guide them in writing strong topic sentences based on the chunks they have already created.

Thanks for your support,

Faith

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Hi, Faith,

I love the way you have started. Thank you for asking me for my input. That you want to use JSWP® with fidelity is wonderful and will make a huge difference as you share with your teachers and work with your students. Following are my remarks:

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Your Example:

TS: Spring is an exciting season because plants begin to grow and the weather gets warmer.

CD: Flowers start to bloom in many places.

CD: The weather becomes warmer and more comfortable.

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My Initial Response:

• Your TS is fine.
• Your CDs have commentary.

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The Fix (2+:1):

• ‍TS: Spring is an exciting season because plants begin to grow and the weather gets warmer.‍
• CD1: In Texas, during the spring months, roses, salvia, and lilies begin to bloom. (Notice the five bolded, specific, and relevant details -- that's what we mean by CDs!)‍
• CD2: The temperature also changes in the spring. (Notice my "changes" versus your "warmer" and "comfortable." These latter words are commentary because they are relative. What seems "warm" or "comfortable" to me might not seem "warm" or "comfortable" to you.)‍
• CD3: While winter temperatures in Texas range from the 30s to the 50s, when spring arrives, the temperatures range from the 50s to the 80s. (Note the specificity of details.)‍
• CM: The landscape is colorful (refers to CD1), and the temperatures are comfortable (refers to CD2 and CD3).

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The Final Draft:

Spring is an exciting season because plants begin to grow and the weather gets warmer. During a typical Texas spring, flowers, such as roses, salvia, and lilies begin blooming. The temperature in Texas also changes. While winter temperatures in Texas often range from the 30s to the 50s, when March arrives, the temperatures tend to hover between the 50s and the 80s. During this special time of year in Texas, the landscape is colorful, and its temperatures are comfortable.

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My Guidance:

• Your TS was fine, and it is derived from the right-side of the JSWP® T-Chart.
• With "2+" for Concrete Details, don't hesitate to let your students write more than 2 sentences.
• Notice how each sentence of concrete detail has multiple details. Remember, "2+" means sentences, but there may be multiple CDs in one sentence -- or not.
• Notice the revision in the final draft. Here is where you would talk to your students about learning new vocabulary and eliminating repetition. Remind your students, "There is always room for improvement."
• For generating commentary, remember that students need to question themselves to brainstorm insightful commentary. For this reason, the JSWP® T-Chart is your best friend. From elementary to high school, teachers tell me all the time that the T-Chart is the best of all the graphic organizers. We can't assume that a student can automatically come up with words and phrases, such as, "special time of year," "colorful," and "comfortable." The T-Chart solves this problem! And the TS, as well as the Concluding Sentence (CS) for a body paragraph, is also generated from this graphic organizer.
• When students brainstorm on the T-Chart, creating a revised TS, commentary, and a concluding sentence becomes not only much easier and less redundant than usual but also prevents students' simply paraphrasing the CDs.

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I hope this guidance is helpful. I’m excited that you are honing your craft, which is what a master teacher does!

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Keep reading and writing!

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Warm regards and Happy Spring!

Dr. Louis

Dear Dr. Louis,

Should I make one prompt for the whole book or break up the novel into a few prompts, covering only the major sections of the book, or could I have the students read it first and decide for themselves what they would like to write about?

Thank you,
Sean M.
High School Teacher
Monticello, Minnesota

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Hi, Sean,

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Thank you for your question.

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Before students begin to read, present them with 2-4 prompts for the novel and set a date for students to "sign-up" for their prompt (by p. 40, for example).

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Why? For several reasons: 1) certain students resonate with certain prompts; 2) you don't want to read 100 essays on the same topic; and 3) giving students choices helps them to work that cognitive skill and empowers them. Here are some other guidelines:

• Make sure that you set a cap. For example, if you have four prompts and sixty students, after fifteen students sign up for Prompt #1, it's gone.
• The prompts should be broad enough that the students can find evidence and provide analysis from the beginning to the end. Some ideas are prompts with elements, such as characterization, literary devices, conflict, setting, or symbolism. Remember, in literary analysis, these elements, also known as methods, lead to meaning; so, somewhere in the task, I suggest that the student must demonstrate how characterization, for example, creates tone and contributes to a theme in the piece. Or how setting derives tone and contributes to the overall meaning of the text. Or how the symbols they choose contribute to theme -- like that.
• Give the students our "Dialectical Journal" and require 3-5 entries per chapter, so they can record their concrete details and commentary as they read and make good decisions at the end. Check these journals once a week (quick check) to make sure they are doing them correctly and hot haphazardly.

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Regarding breaking up prompts for major sections, I love to find and focus on pertinent passages and have the students write a body paragraph in a timed setting. Doing so makes them "think on their feet." So, if you teach the novel over six weeks, for example,

• each week, I would have them write one body paragraph on a particular passage.
• Make sure the prompt is narrow enough to answer it in one body paragraph.
• It's a quick grade for you, and
• it assesses their comprehension of the novel along the way as well as keeps their writing skills fresh.

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Keep reading and writing.

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Warm regards,
Dr. Louis

This morning, I'm writing a lesson for a writing workshop that I'm giving in acouple of weeks. For this literary training, I read a beautiful passage, annotated along the way. I did the thinking, questioning, and prewriting that we teach students to do before they write their drafts -- their interpretations.

As I opened the Word document, what popped up was "Copilot," and it made me sick -- not for adults, who can already think -- I see the benefit for adults in certain situations -- although I immediately deleted it because I want to create my own sentences. Rather, I'm worried for children, teenagers, and college students who are still developing thinking skills through age 26.

Writing is about thinking. As difficult as it may be for most people -- myself included, at times -- it teaches thinking skills.

Just as cell phones in children's hands has proven to be detrimental to their mental and social development, I am convinced that "Copilot" and"ChatGPT" and other AI formats, such as these, are going to create a generation of lazy non-thinkers, and quell the creative writers and thinkers of the future.

For me, this rainy morning, I am excited to write my thoughts down about thispassage. And I want to instill that passion into teachers and their students -- to guide them to explore their thoughts -- their own thoughts and ideas with words and phrases they create -- not those of Copilot who has no name or identity or uniqueness.

From this English language arts teacher of thirty-six years and passionate writer, I humbly beseech the parents out there, please do not let your children take the easy way out by allowing them to write with AI. Let's build their cognitive and creative skills first.

Dear Dr. D',

The confusion I'm having now that you might be able to help me with has to do with how deep to have [my students] go on the WOW sheet in the bubbles. Some students seem to write phrases that tend to define the single CM words as opposed to considering the internal workings of the character (thoughts, feelings, beliefs) that make the character act the way she does.

Janice

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‍Dear Janice,

You are right; the students are not supposed to define the words in the first two spots to get the phrases for the clouds. But do not get frustrated, for commentary takes time and patience (from both of you). First, instead of calling them “bubbles,” I would like for you to call them “clouds,” and tell your students that the clouds represent lofty thoughts, not thoughts that can be found in a dictionary or thesaurus. They are called clouds because you can see them, but you cannot touch them. They are found in the sky, in the heavens, in the mind.

I'm glad that you are starting to teach commentary using characters from literary works. Characterization is the best literary element to begin teaching commentary because it lends itself to asking the students to put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist or antagonist (as well as minor characters). We want students to delve deeply into the human condition--what makes us behave the way we behave; make the comments we make; act the way we act. Ask them, "How would you feel if you were the character?" When they give you a one-word answer, say, "What do you mean by that?"

For teachers, I like to introduce a little bit of Carl Gustav (C.G.) Jung here: C.G. Jung, a famous psychiatrist, depth psychologist, and student of Sigmund Freud, spent much of his life and career working with what he called the "unconscious." You might have heard of the collective unconscious where the archetypes reside. Jung is famous for his study of the archetypes. He also called the unconscious, the psyche. And you might find the etymology of that word interesting:

"psyche." n. 1 the soul; the spirit. 2 the mind. [L f. Gk psukhē breath, life, soul].

So, when we are talking commentary to the students, we are trying to teach them to go into that area of understanding and knowing of which Jung speaks. That's why teaching commentary is so difficult. We have to reach within ourselves and pull it out of those inner corners and crevices of our memories, dreams, and reflections about life. By the way, Jung's autobiography is titled Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

The best approach is to tell the students that commentary comes from three places: the head, the heart, and the gut. You cannot touch it like you can touch a table or rain or snow.  You cannot touch sadness, revenge, love, happiness, thoughtlessness, deceit, generosity. These latter words fall into the realm of commentary.

With the clouds, then, you ask the students to take one of the commentary words--let's say "thoughtlessness." Ask him, "What do you mean by thoughtlessness?"

"Well, Dr. Louis, the character thinks of no one but himself."

"Good, that's the definition of thoughtlessness. Now tell me what's going on inside of him that causes him to be like that? In other words, if you were he, what's going on inside of you?"

"Well, I don't want to get close to anyone."

"Good, write that in the cloud, but use the character's name. What else?"

"It's like he can't see or feel beyond himself."

"Good, write that in a second cloud. What else?"

"He's like an island unto himself, but it's sinking."

"Beautiful. Write that in a third cloud and take a nap for the rest of the period. Your brain is on overload!"

How Commentary Began (in Jane's words)

The missing piece, the “so what?” [commentary] was born one day during a one-to-one conference with a gifted junior. He was writing an essay in 1975 about how Lake Erie had changed since he had been a young boy living there. He brought his prewriting to the teacher at her desk. The teacher looked over the list of concrete details and told the boy to analyze his examples — pollution, dead fish, oil slicks on the beach, the fire when the Cuyahoga River burned. The teacher said, “These look good — now go analyze them.” The boy said, “I have no idea what you teachers mean by analyze.” This was a reasonable statement; he wanted to do the assignment but didn’t know how to begin or what it should look like when he was finished. Then the teacher asked him to say how the experience had changed or affected him. He thought for a few seconds and said, “I realized my past was lost. The cherished days of my childhood were ruined. The halcyon days were behind me.” The boy really said “halcyon.” Schaffer was speechless that a student knew the word and used it correctly. The teacher said, “You did it — what you said to me was analysis. And we’re going to call it commentary because you commented to me about your details.” It’s a far more user-friendly word for teenagers than "analysis" and "interpretation." That day began a department conversation about what it means to analyze a topic and how to lead teenagers away from plot summary — the bane of English teachers’ existence — and toward deeper thought. Most teachers don’t remember how they learned to write. They often taught themselves and alone made the leap from plot summary to analysis. Some know a certain person who helped them, but most of us have no memory of the moment. We just did it.

That student’s reactions made us realize two points:

1. Talking is the missing link in thinking. Students can say what they are thinking but need help getting it down on paper.
2. We assumed far too much about both content and mechanics, and that has rung true ever since. We thought students knew about topic sentences and indentations and analysis, but we were wrong on every count. We like to think we’ve made unwarranted assumptions less frequently since then.

I've always loved the sentiment in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God that begins chapter three: "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." Commentary helps us to do both.

Keep writing (and reading)!

Warm regards,

Dr. D'

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Works Cited

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. 1937. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.

"psyche." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford UP: Norwalk, 1990. 964.