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