Social Cogntivism Blog

Modeling

The skill I modeled was how to outline a paper and prepare a thesis statement. (Fun right? haha)

But this is an incredibly useful skill for high school and college students. It will pay ten-fold in grades, and, as I have recently learned, possibly result in being published.

First I have copies of an idea map, much like the following which I made for a similar assignment:

Then I fill out the map with ideas for my paper. In the main idea oval, I write, "Why being an English teacher rocks." Then in each of the boxes beneath that, I write reasons why teaching English is greats, such as English being relevant in the world, bringing people together through common literary experiences, and  helping people prepare for life. Below that row, in the bottom boxes, I will add experiences or examples supporting each idea.

Then, I have my student(s) fill out the same diagram for their topic/idea. Helping them along the way.

Then, from these main ideas, we can build our wroking thesis statement.

I begin with the sentence starter: "What I want to prove in this paper is... and I can prove it because...(1, 2, and 3)." For my example, my sentence would read, "What I want to prove in this paper is that being an English teacher rocks, and I can prove it because English is relevant, it brings people together, and prepares people to participate in the real world."

To turn that into a thesis statement, we simply cross out the unnecessary bits.

"What I want to prove in this paper is that Being an English teacher rocks, and I can prove it because English is relevant, it brings people together, and prepares people to participate in the real world."

Then students can use the same process with the ideas from their map, and create their own working thesis.

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So, throughout this process of modeling, I feel like  I could help better keep their attention by adding a third step. Above, I have an "I do" and a "you do" but in between I need a "we do." Perhaps on the board, using a student generated topic, they can contribute to filling out the idea map together, coming up and writing the topic, a supporting idea or an example.

Same thing with the thesis statement portion. Actively having students participate in the "we do" practice can help keep their attention.

I would also like to bring in some examples and models, both my own experiences, and previous students, who an explain how this method helped them write a stellar paper that got published, got a much needed "A", got them into the University of their choice, etc. to help show students that writing a great essay can open a lot of doors in life.

There's a ton of scaffolding inherent to this, so if I pre-assess students on their strategies to writing a paper, I will be able to see where they are in terms of planning, and provide how ever much scaffolding is needed for a given class/student.

In an English class, students will end up writing a lot of essays/narratives/etc., so each time I assign one, I can give them the map, so that over the year, they equate writing an essay with "first: map it!"

Reinforcement can come either by praising good use of the map, by awarding points, and vicarious reinforcement can come through seeing how others have succeeded by using the idea map.