Steps in the Writing Process: Beat the Creative Writer Blues with the Writing Step

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

In the previous lesson of our Steps to the Writing Process series, found under Related Lessons in the right-hand sidebar, you learned that brainstorming is an important part of the prewriting step.

By creating lists and using visual mapping, you were able to come up with a fantastic topic for your paper!

Now, it is time to develop a way to tickle your readers' thoughts by learning the writing step!

Writing: applying the hook and drafting!

The writing portion of the writing process involves creating a hook and drafting, or creating the body (the information) of your document.

A hook is the first part of the introduction of the piece, that captures the interest of the reader. The introduction also includes the bridge, a statement that connects the hook to the thesis. The thesis, the final part of an introduction, is the section that presents the main idea and explains what the reader will discover in the rest of the document.

A good hook will sometimes ask a question of the reader or provide a statement to intrigue the reader. To get a feel for how a good hook will provide curiosity and inspire further reading of your writing, take a look at a few examples of the process of developing a strong introduction!

Informational Writing for Kids- Episode 4: Writing an Introduction, by Teaching Without Frills:

How to write a thesis for beginners, by Andrew:

Wow! There are quite a few items that go into creating a great introduction! Start developing your introduction using the chart below. Your introduction should include all of these elements:

Now, let’s take a look at drafting a document.

Drafting

In essence, drafting is putting together your ideas about the topic that you have chosen. In the previous Related Lesson, you created a map of your ideas. This was the outline for the actual writing of the essay. Now, it is time to develop those ideas and start producing the written work.

A new paragraph would include a separate set of texts that organize the ideas of a writer’s topic.

The first attempt at putting together a piece of writing is considered a rough draft. It is important to have a rough draft because it allows you to develop and make changes. This is where you can determine if you need more research for your topic, or if you even need to change your topic idea. There may also be a second and third draft because you will make changes every time you re-read your document.

The draft includes a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a conclusion.

• The topic sentence introduces the paragraph.
• A paragraph is a unit of words that declare a point.
• Supporting sentences are the ideas that support or develop the topic sentence, and they are found in the body of the writing.

There may be more than one paragraph in your writing. Each paragraph begins with the topic sentence and is followed by supporting sentences to convey an idea.

Paragraphs are an important part of written documents. They must be supportive, strong, and considerate. Paragraphs must support the main idea of the writing.

• They must be strong, with clear sentences that contain support for the main idea and nothing frivolous.
• Paragraphs must be considerate of the entire written document. This means that they should be in the correct location and only contain the information for that paragraph. Each paragraph needs to make sense as part of the whole document.

Finally, your writing's conclusion restates the thesis from the introduction. It reminds the reader of the most important points and arguments in the paper or writing. The conclusion reminds the reader what ideas the author — YOU! — was trying to convey.

Watch the following videos by Teaching Without Frills for a better understanding of how to create a draft and a conclusion.

Realistic Fiction Writing for Kids Episode 4: Writing a Draft:

Realistic Fiction Writing for Kids Episode 5: Writing a Closing:

Now, you can flip the page to the Got It? section, start your rough draft, and continue to learn about the writing step of the writing process!