Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

Recommendation 2 

(continued)

Narrative 

• 

A setting

• 

An introduction of characters

• 

A problem or goal

• 

An attempt to solve the problem—often multiple unsuccessful attempts  

or embedded episodes of attempts within attempts

• 

A solution to the problem

• 

A resolution, conclusion, and/or moral

Informational 

•

 A topic or theme (may be repeated) 

•

 Present tense to evoke a timeless or generalizing quality

•

 Technical vocabulary

•

 Descriptive attributes and characteristic events

•

 Definitions or explanations of terms

•

 Visual elements such as diagrams, tables, and charts

Technical 

•

 Specialized topic 

•

 Instructions about how to do something

Persuasive 

• 

Main point or argument

•

 Motivation and arguments for key points (including need, significance,  

and benefits)

•

 Supporting evidence

Reflective

• 

A concrete occasion or anecdote in the beginning

•

 Reflection of the universal significance of the occasion or anecdote

•

 A process of discovery

•

 A lesson about human nature in the conclusion

•

 Rich concrete details and sensory description

Expressive 

• 

First person with informal language (i.e., contractions, slang)

•

 Often has dialogue 

•

 Chronological organization

•

 Lots of description with extensive use of adjectives

•

 Feelings are described in detail

•

 Active verbs

As students read an exemplar text, emphasize 

the features that align with the specific learning 

objective being taught (e.g., using supporting 

evidence to support a claim in argumentative 

writing). Color-coding (as illustrated in Example 

1.12) is one way to emphasize text features. For 

example, provide an exemplar of argumentative 

writing with each claim highlighted in yellow, 

define claim, and then discuss each claim as the 

class reads the exemplar. Similarly, when using 

an exemplar of narrative writing to emphasize 

theme, discuss as a class the definition of 

theme and have students highlight evidence of 

the theme in blue while reading the exemplar 

aloud. Once students understand the features, 

ask them to practice emulating these features in 

their own writing (see Examples 2.6 and 2.7).

Include exemplars with diverse writing quality 

so that students can distinguish the features 

of good exemplars from average and poor 

exemplars across text types. Help students 

notice what distinguishes a high-quality exam-

ple from a less proficient one (see Example 2.7). 

Students can annotate the examples and then 

create a class list of features to refer to as they 

are reviewing their own drafts.

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