Learning how to write a composition requires students to learn to behave like writers instead of like readers. A reader proceeds from title to introduction to body to conclusion.

Efficient expository writers go at writing in a very different way.

The trick to teaching students how to write a composition is to keep them from trying to compose before they do the preparatory work.

Detailed plan precedes composition

Efficient expository writers develop a working thesis and writing skeleton™. Then they add evidence to turn the skeleton into a comprehensive plan.

The comprehensive plan contains all the ideas that will be in the finished paper. To turn it into a composition, writers add only four elements:

• An introduction.

• An ending, often called the conclusion.

• A presentation strategy for evidence.

• Linking and transitional devices.

Introduce the thesis statement

Left to themselves, beginning writers will put all their ideas into their opening paragraph and have nothing left for the rest of the essay.

The introduction in an essay should function like raising the curtain on a play. The introduction should draw people's attention away from what they were doing and focus it on the thesis statement, which is a summary of the point of the entire essay.

Learn about introductions, how to write one, and how to teach your beginning writers to write one.

Waltz into presentation of evidence

Students who have prepared as I recommend with a working thesis, writing skeleton™, and comprehensive plan have all the material for their body paragraphs. In order to communicate their ideas, they need to present their material so it makes sense to readers.

In writing in schools and jobs, evidence is usually presented in the same way it is presented in everyday conversation. I call the presentation strategy the evidence waltz.

If you don't teach a strategy for presenting information, students will have puny, undeveloped paragraphs.

Supply connective tissue

Besides needing a framework for presenting their evidence, students also need to have transitions and linking devices to transform their plans into prose paragraphs.

You can teach students how to use linking devices in a mechanical way in a class period. Even if they are not particularly verbal individuals, students can achieve a fluid writing style by applying the mechanical process in their work over a period of time.

I recommend you teach use of linking devices about the time students are writing their third essays. By then, parts of the writing process will be falling into place and they will be able to profit from help in how to write a composition.

End with a conclusion paragraph

The last thing students must add to their plan to create a finished composition is the conclusion or ending paragraph. Beginners will do well to squeeze out two sentences.

That's OK.

Writers have to go through the entire writing process many times before they are comfortable enough to worry about any particular part of the process.

Keep having students write. Sooner or later you'll hit on a writing topic that actually interests a student. Then you'll see whether you have taught how to write a composition.

After composition: fast check & break

Students need to allow enough time during their composition session for a quick check for errors. The quick check is to assure that students can decipher their writing when they come back to revise and edit.

The quick check is especially important if they know they habitually make one or two of a particular type, such as writing sentence fragments.

Learning time management skills so there is time for correcting errors is part of learning how to write a composition. Students will require your help to learn those lessons.