Strategies to Teach Informative Writing

Quick Links

Group Related Details

Redefine Research Products

Develop a Yearlong Vision

Analyze mother-lode v. mini-units

End writing units with a from-scratch product.

PDF | Word  
Kristina’s sample calendar

Use writing prompts effectively.

Print additional copies of the K-12 Informative & Research Writing Standards | Common Core | Indiana | Ohio

Plan Essential Skills

Focus on the “trump” traits

Chart Sense for Writing

Scaffold Writing Experiences

Redefine what counts as a writing product

Make room to edit it.

Create group products.

Execute Dynamic Mini-Lessons

Introduce the writing modes

Tie the three major writing standards to the author’s purposes.

Introduce writing purposes
with digital examples.

Communicate details in pictures

Picture writing provides opportunities for students to learn about communicating with details. Kids who draw with details will become kids who write with details.

Trace the Shape Book

Cultivate a questioning spirit

Brainstorm research topics
with desktop graffiti.

Narrow the focus

Put research topics to the test.

Read from relevant sources

Collect research from images.

Track sources

Weave the What, Which, & Where into textual citation.

Navigate the internet

Rethink the possibilities
when using search sites.

Ads for “dehydrated” water | Warnings against dihydrogen monoxide (H2O = water) | “Help Save the Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus” | Dangers of bread | Product catalog for mail-order gas (and other fuels) | Promotion for ideal living community for dogs

Fact, Fiction, or Opinion? Evaluating Online Information

You’ve Been Cited: Valid Internet Sources for Student Research

List facts from visuals

Note information learned
from nonfiction texts.

List observable facts from experiences

Provide multiple topics for students to list information based on observations and experiences.

Collect brief notes

PDF | Notebook version | Snapple website

PDF  |  Google Slide  |  Jamboard

Express ideas in early sentences

Students customize their understandings by completing an Information Pyramid with no one right answer.

Descriptive
Google Slide |
Template | Smartboard
Jamboard

Define developed writing

Access free download for 20 Ways to Develop an Idea.

Roz Linder’s book provides 46 different types of “leg” details to elaborate on “table top” topic sentences.

Quote it and note it

Lifting information, and especially expert opinions, requires explicit instruction.

Weave the what, which, and where details into a textual citation.

Organize related information

Introduce consistent and flexible graphic organizers to use in all grade levels and all content areas.

T-Chart: PDF | Jamboard

Adjust a T-Chart
to fit various text structures.

Practice sorting details

List, Sort, Label within a grocery list.

Connect ideas with transitions

Review with students the function of a transition—to merge the reader from one idea to the next.

Advance from transition words to phrases to sentences.

Craft strong introductions and conclusions

Purchase dry-erase puzzle pieces to introduce the ingredients in different mini-lessons.

Craft informative conclusion.

Teach the reader with definition details

Whenever including a specific term or vocabulary word, insert an explanation or synonym for the reader.

Include descriptive comparisons.

Study Writing Samples

Informative

• Author Study: Roald Dahl (Literature Response)
• There’s No Place Like Home (Research, American Revolution)
• Ann Sullivan (Biography)
• Unique Wolves (Research)
• Cheating in America (Research)
• Stealth (Explanatory)

Informative

• Animal Farm (Literary Essay)
• Marching to His Own Beat (Literary Essay)
• MRI (Research)
• McValues (Advertisement Analysis)
• What Confuses Me (Reflective Essay)

Redefine Research Products

1-Sentence-equivalent formats

• The Q&A format allows students to dabble with report writing without requiring a long introduction, logical transitions, and a solid conclusion.
• Information Equations were an idea inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s book This Plus That: Life’s Little Equations. New understanding can be conveyed through informative equations or argumentative ones.
• Creating a single PPT slide of researched information includes the opportunity to dabble with the research process and teach some technology standards. If students each create one PPT slide on a common topic, then the slides could be combined into an all-class product.

List-equivalent formats

• Labeled diagrams can include the students’ sketching the visual and labeling the parts. Or, you could provide the visual for them to label only.
• When working on how-to procedural writing, start with a picture series that requires students to write captions. This again allows them to focus on the information in the body of the writing and to ignore the need for an introduction and conclusion.
• It will take serious synthesizing to create a “recipe” about a concept. (Here’s one more example; this one by a high school student after studying the 1960s.)
• A list might not include only straight-up information but also the differing perspectives in a two-column chart.
• Whether as a class or individually, students can list out related words associated with a researched topic in the form of an ABC list.

Paragraph-equivalent formats

• Create mini-posters with the researched information. Add QR codes for a tech-piece, too.
• Generate informative poems based on the content.
  Young writers can start to juggle compare-contrast thinking with a flapbook.
• After collecting basic information on a topic, have students create mini-books of facts.
• Pair up primary students to develop one page of an all-class big book. Again, this allows students to experience the mode of writing without the pressure of creating an entire piece individually.
• Especially appropriate when researching biographies, students could create a short obituary or epitaph.

1-Page-equivalent formats

• A more involved foldable would be a valuable format for presenting information that is multi-faceted. A favorite is the layered book.
• Printing a PowerPoint document in “handout” format allows students to create a fact flipper (PPT example).
• Using what they know about the topic, they could “interview the concept.” This would include a list of questions by someone unfamiliar with the topic and “answers” from the perspective of the topic.

Multi-Page equivalent formats

• Consider a nontraditional research paper—the multigenre-research project.
• Oral presentations of three or more minutes are an alternative to writing a long paper. For a biography unit, this might culminate with a Wax Museum.