Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

E X A M P L E   1.10.

Recommendation 1 

(continued)

Practicing modeled writing strategies

In each of the examples below, the teacher models the strategy for the whole class, and then stu-

dents practice and reflect on the strategies individually or in small groups.

Discipline Strategy

Writing activity

Math

Compare-

Diagnose-

Operate—

text level 

strategy

A math teacher models thinking about the problem and writing each 

step of the geometric proof. She evaluates her proof using the Com-

pare-Diagnose-Operate (CDO) strategy. She then asks the students 

to solve a second problem and to explain in writing how they solved 

the problem. The teacher then models how she solved the second 

problem. As a whole class, students discuss what they did well in 

their written explanations and where they needed to re-think their 

solution or written explanation using the CDO strategy. Teachers can 

also share student exemplars.