Tech in the Writing Process: Pre-Writing, Clarifying Your Writing Task

In today’s episode, we'll explore how technology can be integrated into the first part of the pre-writing process: clarifying your task and choosing a topic. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckerman.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:09 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit?

Paul Beckermann 0:25 In last week's episode of Tech Talk for Teachers, I talked about how we can have students both learn to write and write to learn. Specifically, I focused on the benefits of writing to learn this week and for the next several weeks, I'm going to look at the other half of the equation: ways we can help our students learn to write.

I'll break down the writing process into five parts: pre-writing, drafting, revising, polishing, and publishing, and I'll share various strategies and tech tools that you can have students use to enhance each step. If you're listening and thinking, "I'm not a writing teacher, I don't think this is for me," I want you to rethink that perspective. As I mentioned last week, writing can be a tremendously powerful way to have your students process, analyze, and internalize their learning in any content area. I'd argue that if we're going to have students write to learn, we should do everything we can to help them learn to write better as well.

Also, I'd argue that the skills students will use to be successful in the writing process are the same skills that they'll need in any problem-solving situation. After all, writing is essentially a complex problem-solving task. In today's episode, I'm going to break down the first part of the pre-writing phase of the writing process, clarifying the writing task. This might seem a simple process that shouldn't require actual instruction. However, this step is crucial and deserves an intentional approach. It's a lot building the foundation of a house. If the foundation has been planned well, plotted accurately, and poured with quality materials, you'll have a solid base upon which to build your home. The same goes for writing.

If you have a strong plan, a clear purpose, solid ideas, and quality organizational structures, you are set up for increased success throughout the process. As with many other types of construction, the first part of the pre-writing process is having a clear vision of your writing task. Let's break that down.

So your first job as a writer is to identify and clarify your writing task. Why are you writing? Is your intent to inform, persuade, or entertain? What's your topic? Who's your audience? And how will your final product be published? If you don't know the answers to these questions, you may end up wandering aimlessly through the writing process without ever establishing a clear focus or coherent message.

Let's focus on deconstructing the prompt first. If you're given a writing task, you can answer many of the key pre-writing questions by deconstructing and interpreting the writing prompt you've been given. Being given a specific prompt is common in school, but it also applies in career settings. Journalists are given writing assignments. Lawyers write briefs that are aligned to their cases. Advertisers and the companies they work for are trying to sell a product. Law enforcement officers write their reports about the specific cases that they're overseeing. In other words, it can be good authentic practice to be given a writing prompt.

To deconstruct a writing prompt, you should carefully and systematically break down each word and key element included in the prompt. By carefully identifying its essential components, you will more recognize and therefore meet all of the writing assignment goals and expectations given to you. To help break down your prompt, you can conveniently use the technology tools built into your favorite word processing program, specifically use the highlighters, text formatting options, and comment features to mark up and annotate your text.

One specific strategy is to use the highlighter to identify the keywords in the prompt. This will help you systematically examine the details of the prompt one word at a time. When you're doing this, it can be helpful to set up a color-coding system to identify each aspect of the prompt.

Here's one example of how colors could be assigned. Purpose could be assigned to pink. Content requirements might be highlighted in green, audience details in yellow, and format specifications in blue.

Here's a sample writing prompt that we can deconstruct: "Write a five-paragraph essay comparing and contrasting public perception and reaction to the Korean and Vietnam wars. You will be sharing this paper digitally with both your teacher and classmates."

Okay, let's break this down now with our color-coding system. If we're going to highlight our purpose in pink, I'd begin by highlighting the words comparing and contrasting. That's our primary task.

Next, I'd highlight content requirements in green. For this prompt that would include public perception and reaction to the Korean and Vietnam wars. I need to make sure that crucial content ends up in my writing.

Third, I'd highlight audience details in yellow. For this prompt, I'd highlight the words sharing and teacher and classmates. This will guide my word choice and tone as I write. If I'm writing just to my teacher, it will be different than if I know my peers will also be reading or hearing the final draft.

Finally, I need to highlight my format specification requirements in blue. In this case, I'd highlight five-paragraph essay and digital paper. While the integrated highlighters work really well, you could choose other methods if you prefer, such as changing font colors, bolding important words, or otherwise annotating your prompt. To enhance the highlighter strategy you might consider trying out the Google Docs Highlight Tool add-on.

This tool offers you the ability to create custom highlighter sets with a corresponding legend that appears at the side of your page. As a teacher, you have the option of creating color-coded highlighter sets ahead of time, and can export them to your students to import into their own document to use. Of course, students can use the add-on to create their own personal highlighter sets as well.

To take this deconstruction process to the next step, use the comment tool to pose questions or initial thoughts about specific parts of the prompt. You might include clarifying questions or ideas about how to approach a specific aspect of the writing assignment. In our history writing example, I might highlight the word public and add a question in the margin, such as, "How will this paper be shared publicly? Will classmates be reading it independently? Will I be reading it out loud, or something else?"

I then want to follow up with my teacher about this for clarification, but the notes in the margin are a great reminder of things I need to clarify. By breaking the prompt down this, I'm forced to slow down and purposefully examine each part of the task, and it's helping me to begin thinking about what I need to do to complete this task. This is a critical thinking skill in school and on the job.

A related task in the first part of pre-writing may include finding a writing topic. If you've been given a prompt, your writing task is probably largely defined for you. However, if you're choosing to write on your own or are tasked with finding your own topic, you might need some inspiration to get you started. Maybe you're assigned to write a short story, but you need to come up with your own topic and storyline. Online idea generators can be a great way to jump-start creativity or to build a writing prompt. Here are a few examples to explore.

Flippity Randomizer. This tool gives you a random writing prompt that includes the who, what, when, and where. You can use the pre-made sample spinner, or you can add your own options to a customized version by adding your own keywords and categories. You could use this for almost any type of writing. As the teacher, you could pre-fill it and give it to your students to spin as well.

The next option is Story Shack Writing Prompt Generator. This prompt generator is best suited for secondary students. As soon as you load the page, you're given a writing prompt to get you started. If you don't that first option, you can click "get ideas" for more. Each click generates a new prompt.

Visual Writing Prompt is another option. This site provides prompts intended for grades three through 12. You can filter by genre, grade, or subject area, language arts, science and STEM, and social studies. The prompts vary in purpose and include both fiction and expository topics.

Pic Lit is another choice. With this tool, you start with a photo, then you can drag words from a word bank up to the image, much as you would do with magnetic poetry. You can also use freestyle to type your own words and take back a little of the creative control. You can choose to use this as your writing canvas, or simply as a prompt generator to get you going. Get inspired by the pictures or words in the accompanying word bank. Both can be effective story starters.

Writer Igniter is another option. This idea generator is unique because it combines a word prompt with a picture prompt. It provides random ideas for character, situation, prop, and setting.

If you're writing about a non-fiction topic, the internet can be your best friend. By conducting a Google or Wikipedia search about the broad topic, you can find connections that you might not make on your own. These discoveries can lead you to a writing topic. For instance, you might be assigned to chronicle a year in history.

In this case, you could conduct a search for that year and explore the keywords and timelines that come up on your list of Google results or on the Wikipedia page for that topic. Or perhaps you need to choose a part of the circulatory system to research. A quick search of circulatory system will turn up numerous details and subtopics from which to choose. The same strategy can be used with online encyclopedias, ProCon websites, news organizations, or content-specific websites.

And what about generative AI? How might you use that in the process? Well, when deconstructing a prompt, you could prompt the chat bot to break that prompt down for you, rather than color-coding it yourself. For instance, you could paste in your prompt and then ask the chat bot to deconstruct that prompt by listing the purpose, content requirements, audience details, and format specifications in a bulleted list format. You could also use a chat bot to help brainstorm possible topics.

It's really great at brainstorming. To do this, you might paste in your prompt and simply ask a question: "What are some possible topics I might consider for this writing prompt?" Or you could go further and offer your personal interests and hobbies and then ask the chat bot to suggest possible topics that might connect the prompt to your interests.

If you want the AI chat bot to function as one of the random topic generators, you could do that as well. Enter a prompt, something this: "Act as a writing prompt generator, provide a five-column table of random characters, conflicts, plots, and settings." As a writer, you can then review the table for ideas that you, and if you don't any of the suggested ideas, you could have the chat bot try again. Or you could add additional limiters, such as a genre or a theme. Another option is ask the chat bot what information it needs in order to help you.

For instance, you can enter a prompt: "I've been asked to write a short story. I'm not sure what to write about. What information do you need for me to generate some possible ideas that meet my assignment requirements?"

When I tried this, I was presented with a series of questions about personal preferences and genre, the assignment criteria, themes, character, setting, and tone. By answering some or all of the questions that the chat bot presents, you're allowing the chat bot to function a brainstorm partner, offering ideas and beginning a back-and-forth conversation of idea generation and refining of ideas. Of course, as with anything AI, it's important to keep yourself as the human front and center in the writing process, but the AI can be a helpful thought partner when needed.

This first step in the writing process is really important in setting any writer up for success. As you present your students with a writing assignment or any academic task for that matter, consider having them intentionally break down and clarify that task. Not only is this good thinking practice, but it will help set them up for success by clearly framing the work that is to come.

I encourage you to tune in again next week as I continue sharing strategies that integrate technology into the writing process. To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit AVID Open Access.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the article collection, "Power Up and Enhance the Writing Process with Technology." And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening.

Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.