Dr. Louis' Blog

DECODING A WRITING PROMPT‍

We have all heard students exclaim, “I don’t know how to start!” The Jane Schaffer Writing Program® (JSWP) was designed by Jane to remove that thought from their minds. From the prompt to the final draft, JSWP teaches students the cognitive thinking process behind the execution of writing.

Let’s start with the prompt.

We have found that students encounter difficulty in writing because they do not understand how to “decode” or “deconstruct” writing prompts. Once students understand our color-coding system, we teach them how to use it to comprehend what a prompt is asking.

‍Guidebooks 2.o Sixth Grade Prompt Hatchet

‍Select an event from Hatchet. What did Brian do to aid or hinder his survival? Does Hatchet have instructional value as a survival guide?

Write a multi-paragraph report explaining how Brian was successful and/or could have improved his situation if he had followed the steps provided in the article case studies. Conclude the report by making a claim and providing clear reasons and evidence about the instructional value of Hatchet. Be sure to use proper grammar, conventions, spelling, and grade-appropriate words and phrases. Cite several pieces of textual evidence, including direct quotations and page numbers.

"What Are They Asking Me to Do? Decoding the Prompt"

‍Introduction and Thesis Statement: In the JSWP, we teach students to start with a broad, thematic, universal idea about the human condition. For example, what is meant by success? Start your introduction by answering that question. Then, narrow the introduction, observing the fictional idea and nonfictional texts that deal with the concept of survival as success. The thesis has the potential of being two-fold: Was Brian successful and/or could he have improved his situation? This is the key question, and from this question the student will derive the first part of the thesis statement. The second part of the thesis statement will defend or challenge the idea that Hatchet is of instructional value. Because of the complexity of the questions, the thesis should probably be a compound sentence (a compound-complex sentence, if the teacher wants a counterargument regarding the argumentative portion of the assignment). The thesis may be a framed thesis in which the writer names his/her reasons, which will lead to the topic sentences or an open thesis that “hints” at the topics. We teach all of this in the Jane Schaffer Writing Program.

‍Topic Sentences (TS): Topic sentences provide reasons that support a writer’s thesis. From where in the prompt could topic sentences come? Options abound: (1) each body paragraph could begin with a TS that names different successes that Brian experiences that aid his survival (beginning writer); or (2) perhaps the student would like to focus on what Brian did that hindered his survival and how he could have improved on that situation (intermediate writer); or, (3) perhaps a student wants to approach main ideas that emerge from the article case studies and use that concept to lead the discussion (advanced); or (4) a combination (highly advanced).Since this prompt requests two different modes of discourse, literary analysis and argumentation, the student will end his report with one or two body paragraphs. In that case, each TS will be the writer’s claim with a “clear reason” about the instructional value of Hatchet.

‍Concrete Details (CDs): In this assignment, concrete details (evidence) are derived directly from the multiple texts (not other forms of evidence which we discuss in our trainings). That evidence will come from Hatchet and the articles. Using the “Evidence Chart,” students will write the concrete details in red. We recommend teaching students how to embed quotations while they read rather than paraphrasing at the 6th grade level. You’ll also notice that we place the prompt as well as key ideas on the “Evidence Chart” to keep the students focused. Once the reading has been completed, discerning which pieces of evidence are the most important is an essential skill that we teach.

‍Commentary (CDs): Commentary is always the most difficult to teach because it asks for students to give insight into their reading and provide interpretations about life and the human condition as well as the significance of the evidence as it pertains to the thesis and the topic sentences. Thus, it must be both insightful and logical. We teach students how to take the ideas of a prompt (abstract nouns, powerful verbs, etc.) and Web-off-of-the-Word™ in order to make inferences about the selection of evidence and how those inferences relate to the prompt, the thesis, and the topic sentences.

‍Concluding Sentence (CS): In an academic body paragraph, each body paragraph must have a concluding sentence. Concluding sentences come from commentary ideas that provide a finished feeling to the body paragraph. For 6th graders, we tell the students that the concluding sentence is a reflection of the topic sentence but does not use any of the same words.ArgumentationThis particular assignment has an argumentative piece in the final section, so we must teach students how to take the different parts of an academic body paragraph and build the claim, concession, counterargument, and refutation. The latter three may not be necessary at the sixth grade level.The ConclusionThis particular assignment does not end with a traditional, classical conclusion since it combines two modes of discourse. If we were to teach the conclusion, we would start with a restatement of the thesis (not a repeat) and broaden the idea to the significance of the assignment. That task is actually being accomplished in the second half of the assignment through argumentation.

Since its inception over forty years ago, JSWP® has held and advocated a multi-sensory, vertically articulated, and cross-curricular philosophy about the importance of students reading and thinking independently and sharing successfully their thinking through oral and written communication.

Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) has come onto the business and academic scenes as a timesaving method of writing; and, in some cases, “AI” is a viable and expeditious form of drafting and editing documents. However, as educators, our first mission is to develop and produce thinkers in our society.

Glen Slater, an Australian-trained Jungian psychologist and one of my venerable professors at Pacifica Graduate Institute where I earned my doctorate, examines in his 2024 book Jung vs Borg how to preserve humanity in an accelerating technological age. Slater is concerned that “increasingly, . . .we're drawn off and distracted to the point of losing our connection to those elements of creativity that drive us to be a better species . . . Unless we start figuring out a way to educate the whole person, we're just going to breed a race of automatons.”

JSWP devotes its time, energy, and professional development to guiding educators how to teach “Authentic Intelligence” to young and maturing minds, to teach the whole person.

When students learn to examine carefully their unique experiences, intuitive contemplations, rational observations, and reflective reading, they can then formulate and communicate those thoughts through writing. Subsequently, their creative expression and innovative ideas result in both personal growth and an evolving collective human experience that ultimately and positively affects generations to come.

Many teachers that we have met are gifted writers themselves; however, they have confided in us that they have difficulties isolating or understanding their innate processing and writing skills and conveying those skills to their students. The Jane Schaffer Academic Writing Program and this guide, Analytical Response to Literature, have been created to provide teachers with a step-by-step visual thinking process of what comes to them naturally, filling the gap between thinking and writing as twilight fills the gap between the night and the day.

Good morning!

My name is Sofia. I'm an English teacher from Brownsville, Texas, and while it's only my second year in the classroom, I feel like I've been teaching the Jane Schaffer Writing Program all my life.

Both of my parents are career educators, and my mom is legitimately the greatest English teacher I've ever met. I thought I was biased about that growing up (being that she raised me), but I find more evidence with every passing day. I was raised surrounded by her colleagues and students, who she loves like family, watching the impact she has on them in real time, and watching them leave her classroom more certain of themselves and their voices than before. She's taught me how to be a great teacher for the past 22 years of my life—which is all of them. 

For the past 24 years of her career, she has taught the JSWP. She told me the story of the first time she attended a workshop with you, how she was a newbie in the classroom, wondering why her students couldn’t magically apply the feedback she was giving them when she asked for "more," to "explain," to "be clearer, more organized.” She'd been forced to attend yet another droning professional development training, and she was not excited. 

By the end of the first day of the workshop, however, she was in tears over the revelations she was having; she'd always believed there was no formula to writing, and that to suggest there could be would constrict writers' instincts. But my mom has always loved writing. She's always been able to intuit how to make her writing sound natural and controlled because it was the most important thing to her in life. How can you impart that on an unwilling mind with no structure?

Jane Schaffer put into words the method my mom and so many great writers have always intuited or studied, one way or another. It made it genuinely accessible. Her workshop with the Jane Schaffer, way back in 2000, proved to be life-altering. She taught it to me as her daughter, not her student, and I never once struggled to articulate myself with confidence. Even though I scarcely think of the terminology as I write anymore, the JSWP bones are present in all of it. She told Ms. Schaffer about her epiphanic experience on day 2 of the conference. Ms. Schaffer completely understood her hesitation, but explained it as concrete structure, not formula. It’s training wheels that want to be taken off. It lays the foundation for free, flexible, articulate writers. My mom sees Ms. Schaffer as the patron saint of writing pedagogy, and she’s been a devout follower since. 

I remember being in middle school, accompanying my mom to a professional development in Austin. Honestly, I just cared about the indoor pool at the hotel the district was paying for. But before I could have my fun, I had to go to her workshop with her (aka, sit next to her and work through a book of word searches and go unnoticed as much as possible). When the training started, I recognized the content immediately as my mother's. Even at that age, having hung out with enough jaded teachers, I had some idea of what made a useless versus a useful training. I knew this one was the real deal, and though I didn't imagine I'd be teaching it myself one day, I remember thinking, "This is the good stuff." 

Now, I'm teaching a few doors down from my mom, imparting the JSWP onto my English II students. Before this gig, I was teaching this for free at my university's Writing Center. There is a jarring number of college students I worked with who had never had any clear instruction on how to write an essay. Many students I've met have believed since childhood that they are doomed to remaining forever mystified by how good writing gets done, leaving it to the experts, the people lucky enough to just have the ability. 

But every time I teach the JSWP to a student at any age or level, with enough time, practice, and persistence, I get to witness this incredible moment where it all just clicks. It's one of life's greatest highs—a massive hit of oxytocin. This method is the only one I've ever known, and it's given me unshakeable confidence in my ability to write and speak well—of course I'm going to give that to as many people as I can. Writing is no secret. You just have to be taught well. Everyone deserves this kind of education, and everyone is capable of writing well. 

Good evening, Dr. Louis,

I have attached an example prompt that one of our teachers decoded. Would you please review it and provide some feedback? I have looked it over myself, but I want to be sure that my feedback is in alignment with the expectations of JSWP. How would this decoded prompt score on the Decoding the Prompt Rubric?

Thank you,
Desiree A.

Dear Desiree,

Thank you for reaching out to me. If students don’t know how to decode their writing prompts, then they are doomed from the beginning. “Decoding the Prompt” is one of the most important skills in writing. And, as students move into middle school, high school, and college, the prompts will become more difficult. So, starting now in elementary school makes me happy and proud.

I can tell that the teacher put much effort into this; the main error was the determination of CD, which affected the determination of CM. The score would be 8/12. See the attached rubric.

Here are my recommendations for honing this skill:

1. THE TITLE. Is it a short story or a novel? If it's a short story, put quotations around the title at the top and in the prompt. If it is a novel, underline both places. Also, include the author. Students need to know how to include authors' names in their responses.
   ‍
2. THE BACKGROUND SENTENCE(S)
   * Gerald is an awkward giraffe who attends an African dance party.
      Stop there.
   * I caution teachers to avoid providing analysis in the background sentence(s). Sometimes, in our attempt to guide the students, we give them the answers, and then they have nowhere to go, or they simply repeat the prompt.
   * You're looking for students to develop an understanding of tone (humiliation and confidence) to answer the question about the lesson. Don't tell them; let them show you!
   * I especially like your background sentence for its diction and opportunity for a grammar lesson. Let me explain:
           - "awkward" and "attends" - When teachers model good word choice, it helps students learn new vocabulary and how it is placed in a sentence.
           - Proper Nouns - The first sentence also teaches students about the proper noun "African."
           - Grammar and diction should be modeled. Good work!
   ‍
3. THE TASK
   * I'm wondering if this writing assignment needs to be two one-chunk paragraphs: 1) At the party with the conflict, and 2) after the party where the lesson is learned.
   ‍
4. MAPPING
   * CD = Your teacher wrote, "The lesson that Gerald learns at the end of the story." This is incorrect. Remember, CD is plot summary in Response to Literature. So, what happens in the story.
   * CM - The lesson he learns and the importance of that lesson could be the CS.

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Also, the teacher might be trying to do too much in the confinements of a one-chunk paragraph. The teacher might receive better results if she 1) asks for a one-chunk paragraph for only the beginning of the story when Gerald feels humiliated; or 2) asks for two one-chunk paragraphs in which the students show the progression of the story and the lesson learned.

     TS = Gerald doesn’t quite fit in.
     CD = He attends a party, and when he dances, the other animals laugh at him. (plot)
     CM = Tone / He feels sad.
     CM = Tone / He wants to be appreciated for who he is.
     CS =Everyone wants to be liked.

     TS = After the party, Gerald learns an important lesson.
     CD = What actually happens (no commentary – plot summary only)
     CM = Tone –What is Gerald’s attitude now?
     CM= What is the lesson of the story?
     CS = Why is this lesson important for all people to learn?

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Another idea: if the teacher doesn’t want the students to write two paragraphs, then she could write the first one as a model, and the students could write the second one. This sample is a good beginning, and I’m so grateful that you are sharing, so we can look at this skill closely.

Keep reading and writing!

D

QUESTION:

We have a color vision impaired student . . . I remember that came up once . . . What do we do?

-- Ms. Melissa B.

‍

Dear Melissa,

But what if you have a student who has color vision impairment? --  a not so unusual trait in many people – teachers, too! This is a situation in which a student or teacher is unable to discern color? Once you discover those students in your classroom, or if you have this challenge as well, one way to solve this problem is to label each pen with its color: blue, red, green, or black.

Here’s an interesting story: I met a man who had CVI, color vision impairment, and when I told him that we labeled the pens with the colors, he told me that when he knows that the color is supposed to be blue, for example, “his brain registers blue, and the color blue actually appears.” I thought that was an amazing discovery.

Another way we help students solve this problem is to have them draw symbols in front of each sentence.

On your notes page in your guide, I’d like for you to find Topic Sentence, abbreviated as TS, and draw a star. The star is our symbol for topic sentence, and we ask our students with CVI to either use a labeled pen or draw a star in front of their topic sentence, or both.

For the Concrete Detail, pick up your red pen. The abbreviation is CD. You’ll create a red label for the students’ pens or ask the students to draw a rectangle that looks similar to a concrete block.

For the Commentary, pick up your green pen. The abbreviation is CM. You’ll create a green label for the students’ pens or ask the students to draw a circle in front of their CM sentences. We chose a circle because it symbolizes wholeness and completeness of thought.

And for the Concluding Sentence, abbreviated as CS, you’ll have the students use the blue pen again. I know you were about to pick up your black pen! No, we bookend the body paragraph with blue. For the CS, the symbol is a star plus an exclamation point. It reflects the topic sentence, hence the star. But it also has impact!

For the body paragraph, we use blue, red, and green. Black will come later.

Question:

My school uses the Jane Schaffer Writing Program for 7th-8th grades both in history and in English classes. We teach about thesis statements in 7th grade, and other teachers on campus begin teaching them in 6th grade and even 5th grade. With your expertise, what age/grade on average is the developmentally appropriate age/grade to first introduce thesis statements? – Mindy R.

Thank you for sharing any wisdom/expertise with us!

Hi, Mindy,

I have worked with elementary teachers for many years, and I find that third grade is the year that teachers require students to write multi-paragraph essays, which require an introduction and, therefore, a thesis statement (sometimes known as a “controlling idea” in the elementary setting). I instruct third and fourth grade teachers to write a one-sentence introduction that is the thesis statement. When students come to fifth grade, we create an introduction with two sentences: a thematic sentence that provides a broad idea related to the topic and then the thesis statement.

Middle school and high school students learn my ten percent rule: an introduction should be ten percent of an essay. In other words, if a teacher assigns a 2,500 word essay, students should write about a 250-word introduction. The same advice goes for the conclusion.

Introduction10%Body80%Conclusion10%

I start by teaching the framed thesis. A framed thesis names the topic of each paragraph. For example, if my essay is about what I like most about April, then I would name what I like most in my thesis statement.

The month of April is special because it is the time when flowers bloom and the weather warms.

My first body paragraph would be about the colors that come from budding flora. My second body paragraph would be about the weather allowing me to wear lighter clothing. The framed thesis is a good way to start because it helps students organize their essays and begins instruction about structure and logic.

In upper level grades, or after students have mastered the framed thesis, I introduce the open thesis. An open thesis is more thematic. It does not identify the topics but rather guides the essence of the essay.

The month of April makes me feel young again.

I will still discuss the colorful blooms and the warm breeze, but I don’t name them in the thesis. The open thesis leaves a little more to the reader’s imagination.

The more exposure to the thesis statement, the better. Each academic year, literary and nonliterary texts become more sophisticated as do writing prompts. Naturally, then, the thesis statements become more sophisticated. If you have a multi-pronged prompt, you will have a multi-pronged thesis.

Many high school English language arts and social studies teachers like debatable thesis statements. That thesis statement lends itself to the art of teaching argumentation.

As the students get taller in their heads, the thesis becomes more complex. I had a wonderful mentor, who taught high school seniors, tell me years ago that a thesis is a compound-complex thought and, therefore, it should be a compound complex sentence.

The thesis statement is a promise, an agreement, and some would say a contract between a writer and her reader. Every word, every phrase, every sentence, and every paragraph in an essay should strive to support and prove the thesis. The thesis statement is that important!

Keep reading and writing!

Warm regards,

Dr. Louis