Introduction
If you don’t have a first draft, then you can’t have a second draft.
What happens during the drafting stage of the writing process? Why is drafting so important? During the drafting stage of writing, a student develops a more cohesive text and explores their topic, directed by purpose, audience, genre, and content. Drafting helps students expand upon, clarify, and modify their initial plans and ideas, and it helps them organize their content into a meaningful sequence or flow. Drafting is an iterative process that involves drafting and redrafting text again and again, and through this process students’ writing improves, becoming stronger, clearer, and better organized.
To be college and career ready, students must be effective writers — that is, writers who are able to clearly communicate their ideas for a specific purpose. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts (ELA) emphasize that it is important to teach students to write in all subjects, to use writing as a way to teach content, and to integrate technology into the process:
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.5 Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Technology-enhanced teaching strategies
All students — and especially those who struggle with writing — benefit from using online and offline tools, such as those shown in this chart.
Integrate Online and Offline Tools into the Drafting Process
Tools |
Online |
Offline |
|---|---|---|
Note cards |
X |
X |
Idea-mapping tools |
X |
X |
Sticky notes |
X |
X |
Highlighters |
X |
X |
Graphics |
X |
X |
Photos and illustrations |
X |
X |
Templates |
X |
X |
Organizers |
X |
X |
In the classroom
Using word processing and other technology tools for drafting is especially helpful for struggling students. The writing process is fluid and these tools recognize this, allowing students to easily change earlier decisions about purpose, audience, and genre, and addressing different learning styles. Show your students how to use technology tools to create, revise, and store their drafts in a digital writing portfolio. Model thinking aloud strategies on the interactive whiteboard.
It is also helpful to provide students with explicit instruction on how to transform ideas and notes into strong sentences and paragraphs. Strategies include color coding sample words and phrases that can be combined into sentences, modeling sentence combining, and teaching students to use transition words. Show students how to write different types of sentences, paragraphs, and other draft texts for diverse purposes and audiences. Use technology tools that support sharing examples of various paragraphs (such as introductions and conclusions) that can be used as models.
It is important to help students understand what it means to write for a variety of genres. By using a classroom blog, a podcast, a wiki, and/or a PowerPoint presentation, you can present and model ways to write, including:
- An opening, also called a lead
- Topic sentences
- Main ideas and supporting details
- Concluding statements
Students learn in different ways, so provide them with a variety of opportunities to reflect on their first draft. You could model reflecting on a piece of your own writing, for example, or you could have students use online graphic organizers. (See UDL Checkpoint 9.3: Develop self-assessment and reflection ). Create a rubric for students (or provide them with a published rubric) to use for self-reflection. Make sure the rubric includes the criteria students will be assessed on, and model how to use the rubric.
Mr. Bradford’s fifth-grade students are creating a digital report about key women in the American Revolution, and during this class they will practice drafting openings or lead sentences to use in their report. Mr. Bradford recognizes that the reading and writing skills of his 25 students are quite varied, so he plans to offer differentiated support.
The students will participate in a variety of prewriting activities to prepare for drafting, including reading books, gathering information, taking notes, and watching videos. Students will access a report template, which Mr. Bradford has posted online, to help them write their first draft.
Mr. Bradford’s specific lesson objective is to have his students draft possible leads to use in a report on women in the American Revolution. This objective aligns with the following Common Core State Standards:
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.7 Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
Mr. Bradford uses technology throughout his curriculum. During this lesson, he will use an interactive whiteboard and a document camera to demonstrate and model how to draft leads. Students will use tablets to view online resources, create leads, and conference with one another. Digital portfolios will be used for ongoing formative evaluation and self-reflection.
Students will be assessed in several ways. Mr. Bradford will give them immediate feedback on their drafted leads, and students will peer edit using multimedia tools. They will also use online checklists and digital portfolios for self-reflection.
The lesson plan, which is outlined below, details what Mr. Bradford will do during the three phases of the lesson: before drafting, during drafting, and after drafting.
More teacher resources on prewriting
This article draws from the PowerUp WHAT WORKS website, particularly the Drafting Instructional Strategy Guide . PowerUp is a free, teacher-friendly website that requires no log-in or registration. The Instructional Strategy Guide includes a brief overview of context clues and an accompanying slide show; a list of the relevant ELA Common Core State Standards; evidence-based teaching strategies to differentiate instruction using technology; a case story; short videos; and links to resources that will help you use technology to support instruction in context clues. If you are responsible for professional development, the PD Support Materials provide helpful ideas and materials for using the drafting resources. Want more information? See www.PowerUpWhatWorks.org .
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