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Last September, eighth grader Alden Dale tried something new when
writing his English papers. Before jumping into a word processing
program, he used Inspiration to create a graphical organizer. The
result? Alden wrote a well planned, well organized essay . . . and
brought home an A+!
Alden was assigned to do a book report on the Newberry Award-winning Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen. He chose to read a second Newberry book as well, Old
Yeller by Fred Gipson, and write a compare and contrast essay about
the two books.
In planning his essay, Alden first laid his thoughts out visually,
creating a compare and contrast graphical organizer in Inspiration. For
each book, he took notes on character traits and story plots and then
created symbols for them in Inspiration. Using links and symbol shapes,
he illustrated similarities and differences. Similarities between the
book plots and character traits were given rounded square symbols;
differences were marked by oval symbols. By using different shapes,
Alden was able to look at his diagram and quickly spot the similarities
and differences between the two books.
With his completed graphical organizer, Alden had a concrete frame
from which to write his essay. In his page-and-a-half paper, he delves
into the plots of Old Yeller and Hatchet and the
characteristics of each book's main character. He then discusses the
similarities and differences between the two. Alden and his parents were
pleased with his organized, coherent essay. And they were thrilled when
it brought home an A+. (Story continues below diagram.)
"Perhaps Alden's experiences with this and other English projects
will give other teachers ideas about how Inspiration can be used to work
with middle school students and their increasingly complex
assignments," reports Tonya Dale, Alden's mom. "Inspiration is
a great tool to tackle these projects in a simple, graphical way."
Looking for other ways to tackle essay writing? Our new book, Meeting
Standards with Inspiration: Core Curriculum Lesson Plans, has lots
of great ideas for you, including a lesson for grades six to eight
entitled "Getting into the Essay."
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