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

Many students begin a writing project by writing an introduction before they have even settled on a working thesis. That's a backward writing process that produces lousy compositions.

Composition adds to complete plan

Students who plan their writng strategically from working thesis and writing skeleton™ to comprehensive plan have all the ideas that will be in their finished papers.

To turn their plans into a compositions, writers add only four elements:

• Evidence presentation in the body paragraphs.

• Linking and transitional devices throughout.

• An introduction.

• An ending, often called the conclusion.

No law about how to write a composition specifies what part of the composition the writer must draft first. Some folks find writing the body paragraphs first works best for them. Others don't feel comfortable unless they begin composition by writing their introductions. Students need to find the composition order that's best for them.

However, you must impress upon students that they method of composition they choose should put most time and attention on the body paragraphs.

Waltz through body paragraphs

In the body paragraphs, evidence is usually presented in the same way it is presented in everyday conversation. The writer:

• Prepares the reader to understand the evidence,

• Presents the evidence,

• Explains the significance of the evidence.

This three-stop strategic process, which I call the evidence waltz, is at the heart of composition. Without it, paragraphs are puny and undeveloped.

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.

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.

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Introduce the thesis statement

Planning their body paragraphs before they write their introductions largely protects students from the novice-writers' mistake of putting evidence in the introduction. Whatever students put in their introductions:

• Cannot be material marked for elsewhere in the paper, and

• Must direct attention toward the thesis.

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 that student 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.