The Sequel: Using Generate Sort Connect Elaborate in Essay
Planning
Tim Inglefinger
As I began my Stories of Learning adventure for another year, I faced with
the same problem. A slew of ideas were in my head, ranging from bland to
grandiose, but with little direction or idea of how to actually put them into
place. I once again started the stressful but challenging process of chipping
away to find a compromise that would be of value to my students and also
achievable. And then, like a Hollywood great, it struck me. I would write a
sequel. With images of Wayne’s World 2 and Terminator 2: Judgement Day in
my head, the ideas began to form. The cast were a little older. Some of the
main players weren’t available, having moved on to Senior School. But the
original premise was right and, with some tweaking and a few fancy special
effects, how could it go wrong?
As a teacher, I am faced with the ever-present challenge of how to
continually improve what I do in the classroom to benefit my students’. Each
year I stress the importance of essay writing and, in particular, paragraph
structure, the value of which will be seen in almost all subjects throughout
their education and beyond. Seeing boys grasp this new skill is certainly a
rewarding aspect of my job and inspires me to continually try to improve how
I teach.
Background
I have been teaching the novel, Tomorrow, When the War Began (TWTWB),
by John Marsden in Year Eight English for several years. It was the focus of my
research last year, in particular replacing comprehension questions with a
Think
Puzzle
Explore
table
(http://storiesoflearning.com/2012_Middle_School_Stories/Entries/2012/12/5_H
ard_Work__Using_Think-PuzzleExplore_to_Replace_Comprehension_Questions_in_the_Teaching_of_a_Novel
.html) . As often happens when going through the process of experimenting,
evaluating and writing, I came to some valuable conclusions about how the
novel is taught and had a few questions or areas that needed further thinking
and experimentation. I decided the focus of my writing should connect with
last year’s and take it further. One of the main areas that I was still unsatisfied
with was the connection between using a TPE table for comprehension and
actually improving my students’ preparedness for the essay, which the boys
complete in an in-class exam to finish the unit. To solve this problem, I have
introduced
Generate-Sort-Connect-Elaborate
(GSCE)
(www.pz.harvard.edu/vt) as a means of unpacking their ideas and planning
for the essay.
My class is a large class of boys, who spend the majority of Term One studying
the text. There is a spread of very capable boys and some who find English
difficult. There is a large group in the middle who are quite content to
complete the work to a reasonable standard, but will, if pushed, achieve
some great things. For this piece of research, the focus will be on the class as
a whole.
Method
Generate Sort Connect Elaborate is a method of concept mapping that is
more prescriptive, which leads students to be more thoughtful and deliberate
in how they gather their thoughts. In this case, the boys used the routine as a
means of planning for an essay. GSCE is effective in this situation because it
allows a student to ‘generate’ a wide range of ideas of varying strength then
pushes them to evaluate their quality through the ‘sort’ process. The final two
steps resonate most strongly with planning an essay. ‘Connect’ allows a
student to make links between different ideas, which is beneficial in linking
paragraphs together. Finally, the ‘elaborate’ step helps a student move from
a broad example to starting to form the substance of their paragraph.
Unit set up
I introduced the GSCE to my class after completing a detailed analysis of the
text, including completing a Think Puzzle Explore table on most chapters, so
the boys had a strong knowledge of the events and characters and had
discussed at length the various themes and ideas. Due to time constraints,
the aim was to complete the ‘generate’ and ‘sort’ steps in the first lesson and
follow up with ‘connect’ and ‘elaborate’ in the second lesson, which would
then lead into starting to write the essays. We began with a pile of Post-It
notes and sheets of A3 paper and two essay topics on the board. The boys
chose an essay topic and started to generate their ideas. The mood in the
classroom was productive, with boys working in pairs to discuss ideas before
producing their own concept map. The lesson ended with all having several
ideas on their page, some with lots more. They had all managed to sort them
according to how strong the ideas were.
The next lesson began with a recap of the process so far as well as an
explanation of how the next two steps worked. I stressed that this would
become the plan for their essay. The next step involved making connections
between ideas. This step is important as it shows their understanding of the
text as well as the topic. I was impressed to see that there were some
excellent connections between ideas as well as some rudimentary ones.
Finally, they were given more sticky notes and asked to elaborate on their
main ideas. The point of this was to start to build discussion around their
examples, which would form the core of the paragraphs of their essays.
Again, some boys made some excellent connections while others were quite
simple.
Joining GSCE to the essays
The final step in leading us towards the essay was joining the concept map to
the essay. In Year Eight English, I teach the TEEL model, (Topic sentence,
Explain, Evidence, Link) so it was easy to make the connection to the
Evidence (the initial examples generated) and Explain (elaborate). The
Connections they made should also help improve their linking sentences. This
gave the boys a sample of ideas, allowing them to choose those that worked
best for their essay and to simply build on the ideas they already had down.
This was particularly effective for boys who struggled to grasp both the essay
topic and the structure of the essay. From here, it was a matter of working
through the steps to write an essay and dropping in the ideas they generated
through the mind map.
Outcome
After generating what I saw as very useful plans for their essay, the boys spent
time at home preparing for the essay that they would write in class, under
exam conditions. The essays were pleasing. While it is always difficult to
quantify improvement, as each year I have a different set of students, I am
confident that the process was worthwhile. As expected, the top students
produced excellent essays, with their paragraph structure clearly influenced
by the GSCE concept maps. More pleasingly, the middle band of students
produced essays that had consistently thoughtful examples and visible links
between the ideas.
Since I had emphasised the importance of mastering essay structure, I was
looking closely for clear topic sentences, logical linking sentences and
thoughtful, well explained examples in their paragraphs. It was obvious that
this message was understood, as most boys began and ended their
paragraphs in the required way. All students had examples (admittedly, of
varying quality), and had used the thoughts they collected in their GSCE to
explain and connect these examples. I was a happy teacher.
Student feedback
The honesty and validity of feedback from our own students cannot be
underestimated. So, with a hint of nervousness, I called on my boys to
appraise the process. In the hope of proving to myself that the boys
understood the value of the GSCE, I asked them to explain the purpose of this
method of planning. Their responses are included, mistakes intact.
“To get the topic you are doing and get good ideas as the to what you are
writing about. It forced you to plan what you were to do your essay on and
not go straight into writing.”
“To help us to see how they develop and how they are all linked.”
“To find the main points of the story and add them together to form a
paragraph to help us with the essay.”
These carefully chosen responses show the boys’ understanding of the
importance of planning and paragraph structure. This is certainly supported
by their fine attempts at structuring their paragraphs. Planning for an essay is
so important, as was demonstrated by the first comment. This is a terrific habit
to take on board for their future learning.
The feedback that follows is a selection of responses to the question ‘How did
it help you plan for your essay?’
“It really helped me realise what I should write about. It also gave me some
structure to my essay.”
“I think the table was very useful as it helps me find the ideas I want, put
them into relevant groups and find the most important ones. It helped me to
know my ideas and what I wanted to write about.”
“It gives us ideas and makes it easy to understand.”
While it is unlikely the table “gave… ideas” it is certainly evident that the boy
understood the value of the table and the feedback shows that it has helped
with their planning and essay structure. Crucially, the boys still need to come
up with the ideas themselves, which had to come from their previous learning
on the novel.
Finally I asked for some feedback on how it could be better used.
“It could be the same just writing it on a piece of paper.”
“If we could bring it into the exam.”
“Bigger groups.”
The feedback above provided me with valuable insights into how I might
better structure the use of the GSCE in essay planning. Working in “bigger
groups” could certainly provide a broader ideas base and would not be
difficult to manage. The majority of the rest of the comments seemed strongly
in favour of its use in planning.
“I don’t think it could be better.”
“I think this is the best way to use it.”
Discussion
With several months having passed since completing this research, I can now
look back with a fresh pair of eyes at the GSCE’s usefulness in planning for
essays. Among the most important benefits, the boys’ positive outlook and
increased focus on actually planning their essays before writing is glaringly
obvious. By having to evaluate the quality of their ideas, they are honing in
on the best aspects to discuss in their essays. Finally, carefully considering the
links between their ideas has helped the flow from paragraph to paragraph.
Of course, there are downsides. Time is always a factor, and it made the
planning process much slower than a more general brain storm. However, this
would have removed some of the stress (or extra homework time, dependent
on study habits) at the writing stage. There is always room to improve the
implementation of any new tool, so we will refine the way we manage the
task through groups, materials and the like.
In Term Three, when studying a new novel, I reminded the boys of our use of
the GSCE in planning for an essay, however I did not make it compulsory. I
decided to give them the option of choosing how they would plan so they
could defer to their preferred method, but, in hindsight, this was a mistake.
Less than quarter of the class decided to use it in their planning. While I
cannot categorically say that it improved their essays, it is evident that the
boys who chose to use it produced essays of which they could be proud. It
also got mentioned as we start to plan speeches for debates we are going to
hold in class. As my English classes move towards examinations, my plan is to
make the GSCE compulsory in planning their essays. From here, we can build
on our use and understanding of the GSCE for planning. With more practise,
the GSCE will become second nature and will be a very useful tool to
prepare for the essays they will complete in years to come.
Conclusion
As I conclude my story of learning, I return to my initial struggle for an idea
and my love for Wayne’s World 2. Like everything in learning, there are
challenges but through persistence we see improvement. I am still learning
the best ways to utilise routines like Generate Sort Connect Elaborate, but it is
challenging and rewarding to learn alongside my students as we experiment
and push our thinking. Who knows, if I get the inspiration for another story, or
really need the money, perhaps I might just make this into a trilogy.