skills

 

Organization of Ideas

Brief Explanation

  • Organization of ideas is the arrangement of ideas, events, incidents, evidence or details in logical order found in a paragraph, story, report, letter, essay, presentation or speech for an intended audience.
    • There is a logical flow of ideas throughout a text.  Ideas in the text are connected, follow a logical sequence and ideas support the main idea.
    • Writing has a focused, coherent order, connections between events and/or details, and closure.

Clearly Identified Key Outcomes

Use your programs of study for curriculum outcomes related to print awareness. Please refer to the CESD’s Essential Outcomes work. Here is a K-9 Scope & Sequence of Writing Outcomes from the English Language Arts curriculum.

Purposeful Instructional Strategies

Identify the purpose/genre of the writing (expository, persuasive, descriptive, narrative, poetic and technical) and intended audience

  • Explicitly teaching students how to pre-plan their writing using:  outlines, graphic organizers, visual planning tools, think/pair/share, oral conversations, think alouds, etc.
  • Teach students to organize their ideas in a logical or sequential order.
  • Model writing and revising – teacher models the process of thinking through the organization of ideas when writing and revising (ie. teacher think-aloud)
  • Teach students to:
    • write topic/thesis sentences followed by supporting details
    • structure paragraphs to best meet the purpose of the writing
    • Build thought/idea  on the previous thought/idea
    • structure the ideas in an order that makes sense
    • end with a concluding sentence or paragraph
  • Use previously written student texts to practice the revision of organization of ideas

Writing Skills and Organization Videos:

Graphic Organizers:
Collection of Graphic Organizers – Scholastic
CESD Resources for Teachers

Personalization of Learning

  • Opportunities to engage in conversation with adults and peers to help generate and articulate ideas
  • Graphic organizers and templates to facilitate the structure of text to support organization of ideas
  • Assistive technology
  • Extra time and instruction