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 The Writing Traits: Idea Developmenthelping your students "go deep" with developed ideas during classroom writing instruction This page's introduction comes from the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Guide (click here for details on ordering this print resource): I once watched a writing teacher ask her students to self-evaluate their rough drafts for just the trait of Idea Development. When the students requested a refresher explanation of this trait (students need constant refreshers, don’t they?), the teacher strategically referred to a poster on I couldn’t help myself. I interrupted her students. I said, “Hey, I know I’m a guest, but do me a favor, please. You all know you have a light bulb going on in your writing. Everyone does, unless they’re copying straight out of a book. So ask yourself, and be really honest: ‘If you had to label your paper’s light bulb as a 20 watt, a 40 watt, a 60 watt, an 80 watt, or a 100 watt bulb, which would it be? And how come?’” I quietly watched students silently revisit their drafts in order to make this determination about their focus. Many writers who had earlier ranked themselves fairly high on their focus were only giving themselves 40 or 60 watts. A few ranked themselves at 80, but not one gave himself a perfect light bulb rating. All noticed spots where they still could have been “brighter.” When the teacher asked them to talk with a neighbor about the light bulb wattage they had decided upon, I heard very interesting discussions about where their papers could have been more focused at times. Each paper was focused to some degree, but that focus moved in and out as the papers progressed. The light bulb metaphor with the wattage addition helped them move beyond the vagueness of the word focus. A few weeks later, I visited the same teacher’s classroom. She had modified my outburst into a technique of which I had never thought. Still working on idea development, she was now requiring her students to draw and label a light bulb in the papers’ margins next to each paragraph or section. The teacher was delighted to see her students were ranking some of their paragraphs higher than others: Here is an 80 watt paragraph, but this is only a 40 watt paragraph. She told me, “Now, if I ask them to focus on a certain paragraph to revise their writing, they actually know right where to begin. It’s a lot less daunting for them to think of paragraph revision as opposed to entire draft revision.” She had found a new meaning to the word focus in the writing process. She had discovered focus means too many things for it to serve as the definition of idea development. |
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her wall. The poster explained simply that, “Idea development is a writer’s focus,” and it was accompanied by a very nicely drawn picture of a light bulb. I watched as almost all of the students ranked themselves very high in this single trait; by their own perceptions, they felt they had remained “focused,” and they certainly felt their papers were guided by some sort of light bulb inside their heads. The word focused and the light bulb metaphor left these young writers with a shallow feel for what idea development is. I knew what this teacher wanted her students to do; she wanted those kids to really analyze their writers’ focus in order to make some revision decisions. They weren’t going to do that with just the word focus and a light bulb to guide them. 
Your personal experiences are what make you unique, and they are where you should do your best self-reflection when developing writing ideas. Even a two-day old baby, if he had the ability to write, has already had enough experiences to self-reflect on life. 
Vanilla ice cream is delicious, but a gooey, sticky banana split smothered under whipped cream is pretty great. 
How do you catch a unique rabbit? You neak up on it!
Many students think that themes and main ideas just happen as a result of writing; they don't realize that authors usually decide on a theme or thesis before they start drafting.
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