After they finish creating an outline
What do students do next?
Creating an outline in a typical English language arts class
is hours away from having an essay that actually supports its
thesis. As you shall see, the textbook ELA writing process is
not a strategic
planning process.
Strategic planning is necessary for efficient
nonfiction, expository writing.
This textbook ELA writing process is too open-ended to be a good
instructional tool.
Methods of teaching writing need to be strategic.
Examining what happens after students finish creating an outline
reveals the weakness in the way the writing process is normally
taught in ELA classes: it is taught as an inventive or a creative
process rather than as a constructive or synthetic process
of reassembling known information.
Prior to outlining, students have spent nearly all their time
thinking about a topic. The only writing students have
done is writing a thesis statement (and some have even
skipped that step).
There is a great deal the writers don't know yet:
They don't know whether their thesis is appropriate to
the topic.
They don't know whether their thesis is an appropriate
size for the writing assignment.
They don't know whether they have any actual sources and
evidence to support their thesis.
They don't know whether more sources and evidence oppose
their thesis than support it.
They don't know whether the points in their outline
support their thesis.
They don't know whether the points in their outline overlap.
Before students can write an essay, they must get answers
to all those questions. Thus, instead of the outline helping
students to focus, it has made the writing task more diffuse.
