Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

English 

language 

arts

Outlining 

strategy

An English language arts teacher models using an outline to plan for 

a descriptive analysis on a novel the class recently read. To structure 

his outline, he creates major headings to discuss the primary char-

acters, setting, plot, themes, and symbolism. He discusses a few of 

the minor points he will use to populate the section on characters. 

He then asks the class to work in groups to populate key points for 

the section on theme, including specific page references. Students 

then select a book to read independently and are asked to produce 

an outline for an accompanying descriptive analysis. 

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