van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Teaching Writing

Fall 2004

Teaching Organization

            Organization is usually taught last by foreign language teachers. This is because it must follow the instruction of sentence structure and is also the most difficult aspect of writing to teach.

            The hardest thing about teaching structure to all students, but especially non-native speakers, is that there are no right or wrong answers to most students` questions. We can teach them and make them memorize what the underlying principals of organization are but this will only help them a little when they are actually writing. The rules of organization and structure are very flexible. Much about how we organize our writing is reliant on the topic we choose, exactly what we want to say about it, and who our audience is. Writing is meaning driven and, no matter how much we might want to, it is not a good idea to make the meaning fit the organization. To write effectively, we need to make the organization fit the meaning.

            Still, however, there are some things we can do as teachers to help our students learn good organization.

            First, teach them the basics. The basics parts of a paragraph; topic sentence, body/supporting statements, and conclusion. The basic parts of the essay; introduction, thesis statement, body, and conclusion. You can also teach them the different types of ordering and the approximate number of supports each main point needs. This will give the some important background information. This will not, however, prepare them fully to write well.

            In order to write well, we must first learn how to be critical of other`s and our own writing. We need to turn our students into writing critics. The best way to do this is through exposure to both good and bad writing. As a good writing teacher we need to take advantage of the link between reading and writing and have our students read a lot, but not just anything. We need to train our students to read critically. Only the students who have been exposed to many different types of writing will themselves, be good writers.

            As a good writing teacher, you will, therefore, need to find good texts to support what you are doing. Most books on composition have many examples of particular types of writing. They are a good place to go to look for texts which are organized in a certain way.

            Now, once we have found the texts themselves what can we do with them? Well, according to Raimes 1983, there are two main types of things we can do. The first one is to use outlines. We can of course do a controlled writing exercise based on a outline, but we can also work backwards. Having the students make an outline from a finished piece of writing gives them an opportunity to think critically about that writing. They are forced to analyze the structure, ordering, and organization of the writing. It is also good to have the students outline their classmates writing as a means of finding problems more easily. The idea is this: in an outline there is nowhere for problems to hide because the piece of writing had been stripped down to its most basic elements.

            The second type of thing we can do according to Raimes 1983, is analysis. The main difference between outlines and analysis is that the former focuses on structure and organization while the latter incorporate elements of meaning as well. Some things we can do to heighten our students` ability to analyze a piece of writing is to omit topic sentences, have them write summaries, and ask questions about the content in relation to the structure. Comparing different students` writing on the same topic or picture is also very enlightening. Having the students analyze and grade their classmates writing is also a good way. Peer evaluations have been used by teachers for many years as an effective mans of getting students to understand some of their own problems with writing.

            There are many different ways of getting students to recognize and explore the organization of writing, including using controlled writing exercises. What we need to make sure of is that we instill in our students a sense of critical thinking and a conscious effort to mold meaning into structure. Good writers think consciously about thesis statements and topic sentences, supporting facts and examples. You need to get your students to the point where thinking like that becomes second nature to them. If they are able to think critically, they will be able to better analyze weaknesses in their own writing.