The Writing Process
Have you ever had ideas on what to write but you didn't know how to put it into writing? Well, this is a way to collect your ideas and organize them into a paragraph that is well-structured and easy to follow. This is also the way we set about gathering information to use in our executive report to raise awareness.
First, we need a structured process to collect information and research. As a class, we decided upon using "MISO". (No, not the soup!) Miso is an acronym for the ways that we can research. Media, Interview, Survey, and Observations.
Media (Internet, Books, Newspaper Articles...)
Interview (Interview a person who knows about your topic...)
Survey (Create a survey that asks crucial questions that you can use as facts in your report...)
Observations (Go to museums, observe people who live with this issue, etc...)
Next, after we have gathered all the information, we need to start figuring out how we are going to put our research into words. Throughout the year, our teacher taught us about the writing process. There were many times she collected a pre-assessment where she had us write paragraphs as a task to see what we knew and what we needed to learn. After that, we would set goals with our teacher, parents or independently allowing us to grow as writers and stay focused. We would change our goals as we became experts on certain writing tools. Also, we soon discovered that it may be helpful to have sort of a guideline. Using another acronym, "TIDE", our class began to put our information into paragraph form. Our teacher showed us models of various paragraphs that used the acronym and she showed us how certain parts of the executive report would look like when we used TIDE. Using highlighters, we were able to identify the parts of a paragraph and what to include in each part of the TIDE acronym. She modeled, or we wrote together, and eventually we were asked to write on our own focusing on our goals as we wrote to report on the issue and call for change.
Topic Sentence (This is the beginning sentence of your paragraph. Let readers know what you will talk about)
Important (These are the important details. Here, give facts and statistics, too...)
Details
Ending Sentence (Wrap your paragraph up! Finish with something meaningful and inspiring...)
For more information on the MISO acronym and service learning please refer to the book The Complete Guide to Service Learning by Cathryn Berger Kaye.
The writing process is part of a writing framework called Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) created by Karen Harris and her colleagues. There are many free resources online that you could visit to learn more about the 6-stages. You could also purchase the book Powerful Writing Strategies.
Special thanks to Alexandra, Naia, and Veronika.
First, we need a structured process to collect information and research. As a class, we decided upon using "MISO". (No, not the soup!) Miso is an acronym for the ways that we can research. Media, Interview, Survey, and Observations.
Media (Internet, Books, Newspaper Articles...)
Interview (Interview a person who knows about your topic...)
Survey (Create a survey that asks crucial questions that you can use as facts in your report...)
Observations (Go to museums, observe people who live with this issue, etc...)
Next, after we have gathered all the information, we need to start figuring out how we are going to put our research into words. Throughout the year, our teacher taught us about the writing process. There were many times she collected a pre-assessment where she had us write paragraphs as a task to see what we knew and what we needed to learn. After that, we would set goals with our teacher, parents or independently allowing us to grow as writers and stay focused. We would change our goals as we became experts on certain writing tools. Also, we soon discovered that it may be helpful to have sort of a guideline. Using another acronym, "TIDE", our class began to put our information into paragraph form. Our teacher showed us models of various paragraphs that used the acronym and she showed us how certain parts of the executive report would look like when we used TIDE. Using highlighters, we were able to identify the parts of a paragraph and what to include in each part of the TIDE acronym. She modeled, or we wrote together, and eventually we were asked to write on our own focusing on our goals as we wrote to report on the issue and call for change.
Topic Sentence (This is the beginning sentence of your paragraph. Let readers know what you will talk about)
Important (These are the important details. Here, give facts and statistics, too...)
Details
Ending Sentence (Wrap your paragraph up! Finish with something meaningful and inspiring...)
For more information on the MISO acronym and service learning please refer to the book The Complete Guide to Service Learning by Cathryn Berger Kaye.
The writing process is part of a writing framework called Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) created by Karen Harris and her colleagues. There are many free resources online that you could visit to learn more about the 6-stages. You could also purchase the book Powerful Writing Strategies.
Special thanks to Alexandra, Naia, and Veronika.