July 3, 2025 • 24 mins
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So, you’ve taught the structure. You’ve modeled examples. You’ve practiced together. And still... your students are struggling to write a strong paragraph. Sound familiar?
In today’s episode, I’m breaking down exactly what to do when your students still aren’t getting it — including practical strategies, mindset shifts, and scaffolds that actually work. Let’s dive in and take the frustration out of paragraph writing once and for all.
Join me: https://www.ebteacher.com/writing-workshop
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
well hello teachers and welcome back to another
episode of the teaching middleschool ela podcast i am very
excited about today's episode ofwhat to do when students still
can't write a strong paragraphbut first things first i want to
remind you that we are doing aspecial promotion here on the
podcast to the month of july ifyou leave us a review on itunes
and you send us an email to letus know that you did so you will
(00:22):
be entered to win a free yearinside of our eb teachers ela
portal which is our monthlymembership for middle school ela
teachers you can use this as acore curriculum, your
supplemental curriculum, just tobe a part of the club and hang
out with an amazing group ofteachers from all around the
world.
We'll be picking a winner at theend of this month.
So make sure, leave a review,send us an email.
(00:42):
That's all you got to do.
All right, let's dive intotoday's episode.
So this is for anyone who hasever looked at a stack of
student writing and thought,wait, Have I taught paragraphs
at all?
You've done the lessons, right?
You've explained what aparagraph is, and yet here we
are with responses that areeither missing key pieces or
just totally missed the mark.
So if that's where you are rightnow, this episode is for you.
(01:04):
So I'm going to walk youthrough...
a very clear classroom-testedstructure that we use inside of
our membership, and it's our EBWriting Framework Paragraph
Response resource, really, thatI'm going to walk you through.
It's not a unit.
It's a resource, really.
And I'm just going to walk youthrough how it's structured and
how we set it up.
And this has been used bythousands of teachers from all
(01:26):
around the world, and it reallyhelps their students understand
start writing complete,thoughtful, evidence-based
paragraphs without having tostart from scratch every single
time.
So even if your students arestruggling like right now, I
promise you, if you just putthese few simple shifts into
practice, you are very close toturning things around for them.
(01:48):
So this is a great episode and Ithink it's going to be really
helpful.
All right, let's go ahead anddive into it.
Hi there, ELA teachers.
Kaitlin here, CEO and co-founderof EB Academics.
I'm so excited you're choosingto tune into the Teaching Middle
School ELA podcast.
Our mission here is simple, tohelp middle school ELA teachers
(02:11):
take back their time outside ofthe classroom by providing them
with engaging lessons, planningframeworks, and genuine support
so that they can become the bestversion of themselves, both
inside and outside of theclassroom.
And we do this every single dayinside the EB Teachers ELA
portal.
This is a special place we'vedeveloped uniquely for ELA
(02:32):
teachers to access every singlepiece of our engaging, fun, and
rigorous curriculum so that theyhave everything they need to
batch plan their lessons usingour EB Teacher Digital Planner
that's built right into the app.
Over the years, we've watched asthousands of teachers from
around the world have foundsuccess in and out of the
classroom after using EBAcademics programs.
(02:55):
All right, I want to start withsomething that you might need to
hear.
If your students are strugglingto write a strong paragraph,
(03:19):
that doesn't mean that you needto start all the way over.
You don't need to start yourentire writing unit over.
You don't need to go back tosquare one necessarily.
I think the most important thingto do is you want to start to
identify the one or two placeswhere things are breaking down,
possibly even for each student.
(03:40):
So usually it's not everythingthat's missing.
It's one of the followingthings.
One, they don't know how tostart the paragraph with a clear
claim.
Number two, maybe they don'thave a good premise.
They don't have a good reason tosupport their claim.
Number three is maybe theirevidence just kind of sucks.
It doesn't connect to the pointthat they're making.
(04:02):
You're like, this quote makes nosense.
Number four, they are notjustifying their evidence, or
maybe they're just simplyrepeating it.
Typically, that's the one wherea lot of students get stuck,
just a little side note.
And last but not least, thefinal piece is they don't really
know how to wrap it up in a waythat reinforces their thinking.
So when we see that there arelike these major components to a
(04:25):
paragraph response, when we havea consistent structure for our
students, we're no longerteaching them to just like write
a paragraph.
What we're doing instead iswe're showing them how to think
in paragraph terms.
So what I want to do is I wantto give you the outline of our
framework that we teach forevidence-based writing at eb and
(04:48):
kind of how we do this in theclassroom with our students so
if you're a portal member ifyou're a part of our membership
this resource is called if yougo to resources and you type in
paragraph depending on yourmembership it's called the ebw
framework for paragraph responseokay so if you're a member you
can go look this up but ifyou're not i'm going to tell you
(05:08):
how to use it so essentially Thestructure is very formulaic, but
when we give students a formula,it makes it very simple for them
to plug and play as they startto learn and build confidence.
And then ultimately they canexpand their thinking.
They can be a little bit more,um, you know, uh, have some
(05:28):
creative choices and things likethat as they get stronger with
the foundation, but we want togive them parameters so that
they know what to even include.
So we use what's called EBW atEB academics and EBW stands for
evidence-based writing.
And the structure that we teachour students follows really,
it's like a six, five, partparagraph breakdown, if you
(05:52):
will.
So the first thing that we teachour students is to start their
paragraph with a tag or a hook.
So if we're writing about a textthat has a title, an author, and
a genre, then we're going to usetag.
So much easier for students.
I would suggest even startingwith this as opposed to with,
you know, a paragraph that'sresponding to a topic because
(06:15):
then you're getting into hook.
And hook is like students...
are staring at a blank piece ofpaper.
They're trying to figure out aninteresting way to start their
paragraph.
Let's give that to them laterwhen they feel a little bit more
confident in their writing.
I would highly suggest startingwith responding to literature.
So in that case, you're havingyour students start with a tag.
And so if your students arestruggling with paragraph
(06:37):
writing and they don't have atag, Well, that's a very simple
fix.
We just remind students, hey,you need a tag, or we can give
them a graphic organizer thathas a spot for the tag so that
they don't forget that, right?
Well, then the second part ofthat is the claim.
So typically like we'll combinethe tag and the claim together
into like one sentence if we'rewriting a paragraph response.
(07:00):
And the claim really is studentsresponding to the essential
question.
So you are setting out to proveyour point, right?
So if the example, let me lookat an example as I walk you guys
through this.
Let me pull one up, a sampleparagraph.
So if we're looking at a samplequestion that is responding to
(07:22):
literature, and the prompt is,in the face of adversity, how
can a person find happiness?
And this is based on Jane Eyre.
And we would start with thenovel Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Bronte demonstrates that forpeople to feel fulfilled, they
must be self-reliant.
So this is my answer to theprompt, that they must be
(07:43):
self-reliant.
So if I find that my studentsare struggling with this part,
the claim, then instead ofteaching a whole like re from
the beginning, all about essaywriting and paragraph writing,
what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to do a lesson on just
claim.
Because clearly they don't getthis piece yet, right?
(08:04):
So that might look somethinglike a claims versus statement
sort.
Maybe I give them a bunch ofclaims and I give them a bunch
of statements and I ask them toput them into piles.
Which ones are claims, whichones are statements, and why?
And so students start to seethat a claim is an opinion that
can be supported with evidenceor not.
Right.
So you'll notice that instead ofgoing all the way back to
(08:26):
teaching this whole framework tostudents and going through tag
and claim and evidence and allthe things, I'm just going to go
pull out a claim activity andsay, oh, I see.
We're struggling with claimsstill.
And if we're struggling withclaims still, it's going to be
really hard to do the rest ofthe paragraph.
Right.
Because if I don't have a strongclaim, I'm not really going to
(08:47):
have a solid premise.
So we have tag.
We have claim.
We have premise.
Right.
And the premise is basicallyyour reason for your claim.
So it can be anything.
It shows the reader why youbelieve your claim is true.
So if we go back to our JaneEyre example, my claim or my
premise rather is this isbecause relying on others for
(09:11):
happiness can cause people toremain in unsatisfying
circumstances.
So here, my reason that I feelthat a person can find happiness
is through self-reliance is Myreason is because if people put
their happiness on other people,then we're relying on others in
all circumstances, right, asopposed to relying on ourself.
(09:34):
And so this is challenging,right?
The premise is challenging forstudents, especially if they
don't have a strong claim.
But what's great here is you canstart to explain to students
that they can have multiplereasons, right, for their claim.
So if you wanted to do apractice with your students, you
could have them read a shortpoem or have ChachiBT come up
(09:55):
with one for you.
And you write the tag, you writethe claim, and then your
students come up with a varietyof premises.
And you're going to have a bunchof different ones from all of
the different perspectives inyour class.
So if I start to see, oh,premise is where they're
struggling, I'm going to pullout that one specific piece of
the framework and have aconversation about this or do a
(10:15):
specific activity or unit orlesson just about premises.
So hopefully you start to kindof follow what I'm saying is
we're not reteaching everythingfrom the get go.
We're pinpointing like down tothe part of the framework where
where there's a struggle.
But if I don't have a frameworkto begin with, there's nothing
to even pinpoint, right?
Which is why the frameworkmatters so much.
(10:35):
So, so far for the paragraphelements, we've covered tag
claim and premise.
Well, the next part is theintroduction to evidence.
So when we do the introductionto evidence effectively, we're
not just dropping a quote in themiddle of the paragraph, right?
We are actually going to use away to introduce the quote.
So it can be something as simpleas according to the text or the
(11:00):
author states or blah, blah,blah.
And then we give the piece ofevidence as students start to
get short.
They might give some backgroundinformation or like set the
scene for the piece of evidence.
So I just, I taught HuckleberryFinn when I was in, when I
taught high school and that'swhat comes to mind.
And it can be something when Jimand Huckleberry are, um, you
(11:20):
know, on the, their raft goingdown the Mississippi river and
they come across blah, blah,blah, X, Y, and Z happens.
And then I have my quote.
So there's a difference betweenaccording to the author and the
author states and setting thescene.
But setting the scene comeslater.
That's not going to be myexpectation of my students from
the beginning.
Even if they just plop a quotein there, at least they have a
(11:40):
quote.
But if I'm finding, man, they'rereally struggling with finding a
good quote.
The quotes that they're choosingdon't really make sense.
Well, that gives me my pinpointof data.
I got to work on this.
So I might do an activity that'sjust focused on evidence.
So this would be something wheregoing back to the example that
(12:02):
we had before, I'm givingstudents on the board, a tag, a
claim and a premise and a pieceof text.
And I'm going to say, go intothe text and find the strongest
piece of evidence that supportsthis claim and this premise.
And I could do that with amultitude of examples using
ChachiBT to come up with themfor me.
And so now I'm giving studentsample opportunities to introduce
(12:25):
the evidence and find strongquotes from the text, right?
So these two really tie intogether, but intro to evidence
and evidence, we teachseparately so that students
don't forget to introduceevidence.
Maybe we don't want to do like adrop a quote in and just leave
and just run, right?
So that's, you know, Pulling outthat one specific part of the
paragraph that students arestruggling with.
(12:47):
Well, the last part of aparagraph response using this
framework is justification.
And this is really where themagic can happen and also where
most of our students fall short,right?
So this is where students needto explain two things.
They need to explain one, howthe evidence that they chose
supports their premise.
And then two, how does all ofthis support their claim, which
(13:10):
is really their answer to theessential question.
So we're teaching them to answerthe question, okay, well, so
what?
Why does this matter?
Why should the reader take yourevidence as support for your
position?
So this is where we're reallyteaching them to think
critically.
And this is where it's also verydifficult.
And so I think that what'simportant here is if you find
(13:30):
yourself just hitting your headup against the wall with
justification, it might be likethat for the year.
It might be like that formonths.
of students consistentlypracticing justification to
then, oh, finally get it.
But at least we know that thisis a part of our paragraphs that
have to be included, right?
(13:53):
And so if students are reallystruggling with justification,
you can, again, pull out justthat thing and just give them
practice only about that.
Give them everything else.
You provide them with the tag,with the claim, with the
premise, with the enteredevidence, with the evidence, and
all they focus on are those twosentences of justification over
and over and over again forvarious examples, right?
(14:16):
We even have, if you're a portalmember, if you're inside of our
membership, let me see if I cango find this really fast for you
guys.
We have a deserted islandjustification activity.
And if you type in justificationto the portal, it should come up
for you.
Yeah, deserted islandjustification practice activity.
This whole activity, it's athree hours long unit, right?
(14:36):
And all it does is help studentsfocus on gripping this concept
of justification.
Like that is how important itis.
And also just goes to show howmuch time we need to spend on
this.
We can't teach it and be like,oh, they should get it now.
It's like, no, that's a totallyunrealistic expectation.
So I think another part of this,of when we're looking at what to
(15:00):
do when students can't write astrong paragraph, take a step
back and be like, oh, it's okay.
That's why we have a whole yearto practice this.
That's why it's also soimportant for you to have
students writing about whatthey're reading about or
discussing what they're readingon a consistent basis.
Because if I put my studentsinto small groups every single
(15:20):
day after we've read a texttogether, let's say that we're
reading Outsiders and they'redoing a...
One of my favorite things wouldbe we'd read.
I'd put students in groups ofthree.
I'd give them an essentialquestion.
And based on what they read thatnight before, they would go
formulate a claim, premise,evidence, and justification and
present it to the class.
(15:41):
So every single day, my studentswere practicing all of these
elements.
It wasn't like writing was justhappening when we sat down to
write a paragraph or when theysat down to write a response to
literature.
Writing, quote unquote, or thisprocess of thinking was
happening every single day inclass.
When we were discussing.
So it's like if a student raisestheir hand and answers a
question, I'm going to say,okay, where's evidence from the
(16:03):
text that supports that?
And if we find evidence from thetext, how does that, how does
that support that?
And I'm going to keep asking.
So what?
Keep digging, keep going, right?
And so I think a part of thistoo is when students still can't
write a strong paragraph, knowthat we're going to keep
teaching it to them over andover and over again, all
throughout the year in allvariety of ways.
(16:26):
And so I actually want to inviteyou because it's easier for me
to kind of teach this in like a,if you can see me and I can
share my screen, I'm doing athree-day writing workshop next
week.
It starts on Tuesday.
I have, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday,and Thursday training that I'm
doing.
They're like 30 to 40 minuteseach.
Pop up Facebook group, doing abunch of giveaways, all the fun
stuff.
I want you to sign up for that.
(16:47):
Go to ebteacher.com forwardslash writing dash workshop.
And I'm going to talk in depthabout this, about how we
incorporate evidence-basedwriting into our entire ELA
class period.
So it's really not just isolatedto when we're writing.
It is, no, this is just how wethink.
This is just how we talk.
This is just how we speak here.
(17:09):
So, yeah, students are writingparagraphs, but they've already
gotten exposed to all of theseconcepts, all of these parts of
this framework multiple times.
So when they do sit down towrite a paragraph, it should be
a no brainer.
It should be easy peasy orrelatively speaking.
OK, so I want to give you just acouple of easy things that you
(17:31):
can do in your classroom to toincorporate this beyond what
I've just shared.
So.
First of all, you've got tofollow the framework.
So I'm going to say it again.
Tag, claim, premise, intro toevidence, evidence,
justification.
That's what's included in aparagraph.
That's what we include.
That is the framework.
So to do this together withoutany fancy tools or without
(17:53):
access to our membership, youcan write a paragraph together.
So if you set students off ontheir own to write a paragraph
and it sucks...
You bring them back and we'regoing to write a paragraph
together so I can give them ashort text, a short prompt.
I can find that from anywhere.
And together you will share withthem a model paragraph that
(18:13):
you've done.
So you're not going to gothrough every single sentence
and write a sentence together.
at a time with your students asyou explain your thinking.
We think that that is going tolose some of your audience, if
you will.
But instead, what you can do isyou can share with them the
model paragraph.
But here's the twist to that.
You cut the model paragraph upinto pieces.
(18:36):
So you put each sentence on itsown sentence strip, if you will.
And then students will sort theparagraph sentences based on the
framework.
So like you would have asentence for Jane Eyre, the
novel Jane Eyre by CharlotteBronte demonstrates that people,
that for people to feelfulfilled, they must be
(18:57):
self-reliant.
That's going to go on onesentence trip.
Well, then the premise is gonnago on another one.
This is because relying onothers for happiness can cause
people to remain in unsatisfyingcircumstances.
And I'm going to do that forevery single sentence that's in
this paragraph response.
And I'm gonna give my studentsall of those sentences.
So you should have a tagsentence that's combined with a
(19:19):
claim, so that's one.
You should have a premisesentence.
You should have an intro toevidence and evidence sentence.
And then you should have atleast two justification
sentences.
So that's five sentencescombined on five different
sentence strips that you'regiving your students.
And students are then going toput them in the order that they
believe the paragraph should go.
And that shows them and it'shelping them synthesize the
(19:41):
concept of, okay, this is aclaim because why, okay, this is
a premise because why, right?
The evidence obviously isevidence, but at least they're
seeing it, right?
And they're starting to kind oflabel these parts.
So they have You can even usedifferent colors or different
symbols for students to make itvisual.
The other thing that you can dowith this is give students a
(20:01):
printed paragraph and have themlabel all of the parts.
So you give them the fullparagraph and then they label it
or highlight it.
And then have students go writesomething on their own.
So after you've practiced this,and this is after you've
introduced this concept to yourstudents and This isn't, I'm
identifying what needs to beworked on.
This is like, okay, I'mintroducing it to them for the
(20:23):
first time or maybe coming backas a whole group instruction.
But students will write theirown using the same structure.
But what I like to do is I liketo have students before they
turn it in, highlight and labeleach of the sections of the
framework on their actualessays.
So they will typically find whenthey're looking for intro to
(20:43):
evidence to highlight, they'relike, oh, I don't have it.
It's missing, right?
I got to put that in.
OK, so I think that there aretwo things that I'm kind of
trying to articulate here.
Number one is you have to use aframework.
Use ours.
It's six parts.
Already explained it.
And when you introduce it tothem, right, just make it super
clear.
(21:03):
We give our students like awhole like guided notes that has
a section for each of theparagraph elements that we tell
them what it is and what itdoes.
And that's what I would suggestthat you do.
And then after students start tokind of like write these things
on their own, instead of goingall the way back to the
beginning and teaching it allthe way over again, what we're
(21:24):
doing instead is we're lookingfor like the actual gaps.
Do they actually understand tag?
Okay, cool, check.
Don't need to come back to thatone again.
Do they actually understandclaim?
Oh, no?
Okay, we're going to do a claimversus a statement sort.
We're going to spend more timeworking on this.
I'm going to provide them with aprompt.
All I want them to do is write aclaim.
And I could have them do thatmultiple times, right?
(21:47):
And so on and so forth.
So it's like I'm piecing outeach section where they're
struggling.
I like to think of this from anathletics perspective.
Let's say that my team...
And it's a beautiful example,actually.
Let's say that my team is reallystruggling in a game and we go
in at halftime and I'm like,what's the issue?
Okay.
(22:07):
As the coach, I'm like, what'sthe issue?
Why are we losing this game?
Why are we not cohesive as ateam right now?
I'm not going to like, try toreteach dribbling and shooting
and passing and all the plays.
No, I'm going to look for theBecause we keep turning over the
ball or we're losing becausewe're not getting enough
offensive rebounds or we'relosing because our three point
(22:31):
percentage is 10% instead of 35,right?
So there's a pinpointed reasonwhy we're quote unquote losing.
So in this case, there's apinpointed reason why your
students aren't getting thestrong paragraph.
Yes, for some of our students,it's going to be the whole
thing.
And for others, it's just goingto be pieces of it.
But that's why it's so importantto really kind of break this
(22:51):
down and start to understand,oh, 50% of my class does not get
premise.
They just don't get it.
Or 100% of my class isstruggling with the whole thing.
I got to go back to square onein that case, right?
So you start to see where I'mgoing with this, right?
But I think it's reallyimportant for you to kind of
take away from this is that whenstudents can't write a strong
(23:13):
paragraph, it does not mean thatyou one have failed at all.
And it also too, doesn't meanthat they aren't capable.
It just means that they need astructure that makes thinking
visible to them.
So you don't need a fullcurriculum overhaul.
You don't need a full writingoverhaul.
You just need to focus on arepeatable paragraph structure,
like what I walked you through.
And like I said, we use thisinside of our membership, inside
(23:35):
of our portal, every single daywith students, it works.
And if you want access to it andyou want to join us inside, make
sure you add your name to ourpriority list at ebteacher.com
forward slash portal.
But definitely join me for nextweek's three-day writing
workshop.
It's going to be a game changer.
You're going to learn so much.
I'm going to give you tons ofgreat resources, including one
focused on tag.
(23:56):
And I really just, I hope thatthis podcast episode helps you
and serves you in some way ofjust really changing our
thinking about how we'rethinking about what our students
are quote-unquote not getting orwhat our students are
quote-unquote failing at, right?
Because justification literallymight take them seven months,
eight months, the entire schoolyear for it to finally be like,
(24:18):
oh, now I understand what to do.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
That's why they're in yourclass, right?
That's why they're there.
That's why we're learning.
And that's why we never give up.
All right, you guys, have awonderful rest of your day.
This is Erin Woodhahn.
the July 3rd.
So tomorrow, 4th of July, tothose of you who celebrate, hope
(24:38):
you have a great holiday andwe'll see you guys next week on
the podcast.
Thanks everyone.
well hello teachers and welcome back to another
episode of the teaching middleschool ela podcast i am very
excited about today's episode ofwhat to do when students still
can't write a strong paragraphbut first things first i want to
remind you that we are doing aspecial promotion here on the
podcast to the month of july ifyou leave us a review on itunes
and you send us an email to letus know that you did so you will
(00:22):
be entered to win a free yearinside of our eb teachers ela
portal which is our monthlymembership for middle school ela
teachers you can use this as acore curriculum, your
supplemental curriculum, just tobe a part of the club and hang
out with an amazing group ofteachers from all around the
world.
We'll be picking a winner at theend of this month.
So make sure, leave a review,send us an email.
(00:42):
That's all you got to do.
All right, let's dive intotoday's episode.
So this is for anyone who hasever looked at a stack of
student writing and thought,wait, Have I taught paragraphs
at all?
You've done the lessons, right?
You've explained what aparagraph is, and yet here we
are with responses that areeither missing key pieces or
just totally missed the mark.
So if that's where you are rightnow, this episode is for you.
(01:04):
So I'm going to walk youthrough...
a very clear classroom-testedstructure that we use inside of
our membership, and it's our EBWriting Framework Paragraph
Response resource, really, thatI'm going to walk you through.
It's not a unit.
It's a resource, really.
And I'm just going to walk youthrough how it's structured and
how we set it up.
And this has been used bythousands of teachers from all
(01:26):
around the world, and it reallyhelps their students understand
start writing complete,thoughtful, evidence-based
paragraphs without having tostart from scratch every single
time.
So even if your students arestruggling like right now, I
promise you, if you just putthese few simple shifts into
practice, you are very close toturning things around for them.
(01:48):
So this is a great episode and Ithink it's going to be really
helpful.
All right, let's go ahead anddive into it.
Hi there, ELA teachers.
Kaitlin here, CEO and co-founderof EB Academics.
I'm so excited you're choosingto tune into the Teaching Middle
School ELA podcast.
Our mission here is simple, tohelp middle school ELA teachers
(02:11):
take back their time outside ofthe classroom by providing them
with engaging lessons, planningframeworks, and genuine support
so that they can become the bestversion of themselves, both
inside and outside of theclassroom.
And we do this every single dayinside the EB Teachers ELA
portal.
This is a special place we'vedeveloped uniquely for ELA
(02:32):
teachers to access every singlepiece of our engaging, fun, and
rigorous curriculum so that theyhave everything they need to
batch plan their lessons usingour EB Teacher Digital Planner
that's built right into the app.
Over the years, we've watched asthousands of teachers from
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(02:55):
All right, I want to start withsomething that you might need to
hear.
If your students are strugglingto write a strong paragraph,
(03:19):
that doesn't mean that you needto start all the way over.
You don't need to start yourentire writing unit over.
You don't need to go back tosquare one necessarily.
I think the most important thingto do is you want to start to
identify the one or two placeswhere things are breaking down,
possibly even for each student.
(03:40):
So usually it's not everythingthat's missing.
It's one of the followingthings.
One, they don't know how tostart the paragraph with a clear
claim.
Number two, maybe they don'thave a good premise.
They don't have a good reason tosupport their claim.
Number three is maybe theirevidence just kind of sucks.
It doesn't connect to the pointthat they're making.
(04:02):
You're like, this quote makes nosense.
Number four, they are notjustifying their evidence, or
maybe they're just simplyrepeating it.
Typically, that's the one wherea lot of students get stuck,
just a little side note.
And last but not least, thefinal piece is they don't really
know how to wrap it up in a waythat reinforces their thinking.
So when we see that there arelike these major components to a
(04:25):
paragraph response, when we havea consistent structure for our
students, we're no longerteaching them to just like write
a paragraph.
What we're doing instead iswe're showing them how to think
in paragraph terms.
So what I want to do is I wantto give you the outline of our
framework that we teach forevidence-based writing at eb and
(04:48):
kind of how we do this in theclassroom with our students so
if you're a portal member ifyou're a part of our membership
this resource is called if yougo to resources and you type in
paragraph depending on yourmembership it's called the ebw
framework for paragraph responseokay so if you're a member you
can go look this up but ifyou're not i'm going to tell you
(05:08):
how to use it so essentially Thestructure is very formulaic, but
when we give students a formula,it makes it very simple for them
to plug and play as they startto learn and build confidence.
And then ultimately they canexpand their thinking.
They can be a little bit more,um, you know, uh, have some
(05:28):
creative choices and things likethat as they get stronger with
the foundation, but we want togive them parameters so that
they know what to even include.
So we use what's called EBW atEB academics and EBW stands for
evidence-based writing.
And the structure that we teachour students follows really,
it's like a six, five, partparagraph breakdown, if you
(05:52):
will.
So the first thing that we teachour students is to start their
paragraph with a tag or a hook.
So if we're writing about a textthat has a title, an author, and
a genre, then we're going to usetag.
So much easier for students.
I would suggest even startingwith this as opposed to with,
you know, a paragraph that'sresponding to a topic because
(06:15):
then you're getting into hook.
And hook is like students...
are staring at a blank piece ofpaper.
They're trying to figure out aninteresting way to start their
paragraph.
Let's give that to them laterwhen they feel a little bit more
confident in their writing.
I would highly suggest startingwith responding to literature.
So in that case, you're havingyour students start with a tag.
And so if your students arestruggling with paragraph
(06:37):
writing and they don't have atag, Well, that's a very simple
fix.
We just remind students, hey,you need a tag, or we can give
them a graphic organizer thathas a spot for the tag so that
they don't forget that, right?
Well, then the second part ofthat is the claim.
So typically like we'll combinethe tag and the claim together
into like one sentence if we'rewriting a paragraph response.
(07:00):
And the claim really is studentsresponding to the essential
question.
So you are setting out to proveyour point, right?
So if the example, let me lookat an example as I walk you guys
through this.
Let me pull one up, a sampleparagraph.
So if we're looking at a samplequestion that is responding to
(07:22):
literature, and the prompt is,in the face of adversity, how
can a person find happiness?
And this is based on Jane Eyre.
And we would start with thenovel Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Bronte demonstrates that forpeople to feel fulfilled, they
must be self-reliant.
So this is my answer to theprompt, that they must be
(07:43):
self-reliant.
So if I find that my studentsare struggling with this part,
the claim, then instead ofteaching a whole like re from
the beginning, all about essaywriting and paragraph writing,
what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to do a lesson on just
claim.
Because clearly they don't getthis piece yet, right?
(08:04):
So that might look somethinglike a claims versus statement
sort.
Maybe I give them a bunch ofclaims and I give them a bunch
of statements and I ask them toput them into piles.
Which ones are claims, whichones are statements, and why?
And so students start to seethat a claim is an opinion that
can be supported with evidenceor not.
Right.
So you'll notice that instead ofgoing all the way back to
(08:26):
teaching this whole framework tostudents and going through tag
and claim and evidence and allthe things, I'm just going to go
pull out a claim activity andsay, oh, I see.
We're struggling with claimsstill.
And if we're struggling withclaims still, it's going to be
really hard to do the rest ofthe paragraph.
Right.
Because if I don't have a strongclaim, I'm not really going to
(08:47):
have a solid premise.
So we have tag.
We have claim.
We have premise.
Right.
And the premise is basicallyyour reason for your claim.
So it can be anything.
It shows the reader why youbelieve your claim is true.
So if we go back to our JaneEyre example, my claim or my
premise rather is this isbecause relying on others for
(09:11):
happiness can cause people toremain in unsatisfying
circumstances.
So here, my reason that I feelthat a person can find happiness
is through self-reliance is Myreason is because if people put
their happiness on other people,then we're relying on others in
all circumstances, right, asopposed to relying on ourself.
(09:34):
And so this is challenging,right?
The premise is challenging forstudents, especially if they
don't have a strong claim.
But what's great here is you canstart to explain to students
that they can have multiplereasons, right, for their claim.
So if you wanted to do apractice with your students, you
could have them read a shortpoem or have ChachiBT come up
(09:55):
with one for you.
And you write the tag, you writethe claim, and then your
students come up with a varietyof premises.
And you're going to have a bunchof different ones from all of
the different perspectives inyour class.
So if I start to see, oh,premise is where they're
struggling, I'm going to pullout that one specific piece of
the framework and have aconversation about this or do a
(10:15):
specific activity or unit orlesson just about premises.
So hopefully you start to kindof follow what I'm saying is
we're not reteaching everythingfrom the get go.
We're pinpointing like down tothe part of the framework where
where there's a struggle.
But if I don't have a frameworkto begin with, there's nothing
to even pinpoint, right?
Which is why the frameworkmatters so much.
(10:35):
So, so far for the paragraphelements, we've covered tag
claim and premise.
Well, the next part is theintroduction to evidence.
So when we do the introductionto evidence effectively, we're
not just dropping a quote in themiddle of the paragraph, right?
We are actually going to use away to introduce the quote.
So it can be something as simpleas according to the text or the
(11:00):
author states or blah, blah,blah.
And then we give the piece ofevidence as students start to
get short.
They might give some backgroundinformation or like set the
scene for the piece of evidence.
So I just, I taught HuckleberryFinn when I was in, when I
taught high school and that'swhat comes to mind.
And it can be something when Jimand Huckleberry are, um, you
(11:20):
know, on the, their raft goingdown the Mississippi river and
they come across blah, blah,blah, X, Y, and Z happens.
And then I have my quote.
So there's a difference betweenaccording to the author and the
author states and setting thescene.
But setting the scene comeslater.
That's not going to be myexpectation of my students from
the beginning.
Even if they just plop a quotein there, at least they have a
(11:40):
quote.
But if I'm finding, man, they'rereally struggling with finding a
good quote.
The quotes that they're choosingdon't really make sense.
Well, that gives me my pinpointof data.
I got to work on this.
So I might do an activity that'sjust focused on evidence.
So this would be something wheregoing back to the example that
(12:02):
we had before, I'm givingstudents on the board, a tag, a
claim and a premise and a pieceof text.
And I'm going to say, go intothe text and find the strongest
piece of evidence that supportsthis claim and this premise.
And I could do that with amultitude of examples using
ChachiBT to come up with themfor me.
And so now I'm giving studentsample opportunities to introduce
(12:25):
the evidence and find strongquotes from the text, right?
So these two really tie intogether, but intro to evidence
and evidence, we teachseparately so that students
don't forget to introduceevidence.
Maybe we don't want to do like adrop a quote in and just leave
and just run, right?
So that's, you know, Pulling outthat one specific part of the
paragraph that students arestruggling with.
(12:47):
Well, the last part of aparagraph response using this
framework is justification.
And this is really where themagic can happen and also where
most of our students fall short,right?
So this is where students needto explain two things.
They need to explain one, howthe evidence that they chose
supports their premise.
And then two, how does all ofthis support their claim, which
(13:10):
is really their answer to theessential question.
So we're teaching them to answerthe question, okay, well, so
what?
Why does this matter?
Why should the reader take yourevidence as support for your
position?
So this is where we're reallyteaching them to think
critically.
And this is where it's also verydifficult.
And so I think that what'simportant here is if you find
(13:30):
yourself just hitting your headup against the wall with
justification, it might be likethat for the year.
It might be like that formonths.
of students consistentlypracticing justification to
then, oh, finally get it.
But at least we know that thisis a part of our paragraphs that
have to be included, right?
(13:53):
And so if students are reallystruggling with justification,
you can, again, pull out justthat thing and just give them
practice only about that.
Give them everything else.
You provide them with the tag,with the claim, with the
premise, with the enteredevidence, with the evidence, and
all they focus on are those twosentences of justification over
and over and over again forvarious examples, right?
(14:16):
We even have, if you're a portalmember, if you're inside of our
membership, let me see if I cango find this really fast for you
guys.
We have a deserted islandjustification activity.
And if you type in justificationto the portal, it should come up
for you.
Yeah, deserted islandjustification practice activity.
This whole activity, it's athree hours long unit, right?
(14:36):
And all it does is help studentsfocus on gripping this concept
of justification.
Like that is how important itis.
And also just goes to show howmuch time we need to spend on
this.
We can't teach it and be like,oh, they should get it now.
It's like, no, that's a totallyunrealistic expectation.
So I think another part of this,of when we're looking at what to
(15:00):
do when students can't write astrong paragraph, take a step
back and be like, oh, it's okay.
That's why we have a whole yearto practice this.
That's why it's also soimportant for you to have
students writing about whatthey're reading about or
discussing what they're readingon a consistent basis.
Because if I put my studentsinto small groups every single
(15:20):
day after we've read a texttogether, let's say that we're
reading Outsiders and they'redoing a...
One of my favorite things wouldbe we'd read.
I'd put students in groups ofthree.
I'd give them an essentialquestion.
And based on what they read thatnight before, they would go
formulate a claim, premise,evidence, and justification and
present it to the class.
(15:41):
So every single day, my studentswere practicing all of these
elements.
It wasn't like writing was justhappening when we sat down to
write a paragraph or when theysat down to write a response to
literature.
Writing, quote unquote, or thisprocess of thinking was
happening every single day inclass.
When we were discussing.
So it's like if a student raisestheir hand and answers a
question, I'm going to say,okay, where's evidence from the
(16:03):
text that supports that?
And if we find evidence from thetext, how does that, how does
that support that?
And I'm going to keep asking.
So what?
Keep digging, keep going, right?
And so I think a part of thistoo is when students still can't
write a strong paragraph, knowthat we're going to keep
teaching it to them over andover and over again, all
throughout the year in allvariety of ways.
(16:26):
And so I actually want to inviteyou because it's easier for me
to kind of teach this in like a,if you can see me and I can
share my screen, I'm doing athree-day writing workshop next
week.
It starts on Tuesday.
I have, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday,and Thursday training that I'm
doing.
They're like 30 to 40 minuteseach.
Pop up Facebook group, doing abunch of giveaways, all the fun
stuff.
I want you to sign up for that.
(16:47):
Go to ebteacher.com forwardslash writing dash workshop.
And I'm going to talk in depthabout this, about how we
incorporate evidence-basedwriting into our entire ELA
class period.
So it's really not just isolatedto when we're writing.
It is, no, this is just how wethink.
This is just how we talk.
This is just how we speak here.
(17:09):
So, yeah, students are writingparagraphs, but they've already
gotten exposed to all of theseconcepts, all of these parts of
this framework multiple times.
So when they do sit down towrite a paragraph, it should be
a no brainer.
It should be easy peasy orrelatively speaking.
OK, so I want to give you just acouple of easy things that you
(17:31):
can do in your classroom to toincorporate this beyond what
I've just shared.
So.
First of all, you've got tofollow the framework.
So I'm going to say it again.
Tag, claim, premise, intro toevidence, evidence,
justification.
That's what's included in aparagraph.
That's what we include.
That is the framework.
So to do this together withoutany fancy tools or without
(17:53):
access to our membership, youcan write a paragraph together.
So if you set students off ontheir own to write a paragraph
and it sucks...
You bring them back and we'regoing to write a paragraph
together so I can give them ashort text, a short prompt.
I can find that from anywhere.
And together you will share withthem a model paragraph that
(18:13):
you've done.
So you're not going to gothrough every single sentence
and write a sentence together.
at a time with your students asyou explain your thinking.
We think that that is going tolose some of your audience, if
you will.
But instead, what you can do isyou can share with them the
model paragraph.
But here's the twist to that.
You cut the model paragraph upinto pieces.
(18:36):
So you put each sentence on itsown sentence strip, if you will.
And then students will sort theparagraph sentences based on the
framework.
So like you would have asentence for Jane Eyre, the
novel Jane Eyre by CharlotteBronte demonstrates that people,
that for people to feelfulfilled, they must be
(18:57):
self-reliant.
That's going to go on onesentence trip.
Well, then the premise is gonnago on another one.
This is because relying onothers for happiness can cause
people to remain in unsatisfyingcircumstances.
And I'm going to do that forevery single sentence that's in
this paragraph response.
And I'm gonna give my studentsall of those sentences.
So you should have a tagsentence that's combined with a
(19:19):
claim, so that's one.
You should have a premisesentence.
You should have an intro toevidence and evidence sentence.
And then you should have atleast two justification
sentences.
So that's five sentencescombined on five different
sentence strips that you'regiving your students.
And students are then going toput them in the order that they
believe the paragraph should go.
And that shows them and it'shelping them synthesize the
(19:41):
concept of, okay, this is aclaim because why, okay, this is
a premise because why, right?
The evidence obviously isevidence, but at least they're
seeing it, right?
And they're starting to kind oflabel these parts.
So they have You can even usedifferent colors or different
symbols for students to make itvisual.
The other thing that you can dowith this is give students a
(20:01):
printed paragraph and have themlabel all of the parts.
So you give them the fullparagraph and then they label it
or highlight it.
And then have students go writesomething on their own.
So after you've practiced this,and this is after you've
introduced this concept to yourstudents and This isn't, I'm
identifying what needs to beworked on.
This is like, okay, I'mintroducing it to them for the
(20:23):
first time or maybe coming backas a whole group instruction.
But students will write theirown using the same structure.
But what I like to do is I liketo have students before they
turn it in, highlight and labeleach of the sections of the
framework on their actualessays.
So they will typically find whenthey're looking for intro to
(20:43):
evidence to highlight, they'relike, oh, I don't have it.
It's missing, right?
I got to put that in.
OK, so I think that there aretwo things that I'm kind of
trying to articulate here.
Number one is you have to use aframework.
Use ours.
It's six parts.
Already explained it.
And when you introduce it tothem, right, just make it super
clear.
(21:03):
We give our students like awhole like guided notes that has
a section for each of theparagraph elements that we tell
them what it is and what itdoes.
And that's what I would suggestthat you do.
And then after students start tokind of like write these things
on their own, instead of goingall the way back to the
beginning and teaching it allthe way over again, what we're
(21:24):
doing instead is we're lookingfor like the actual gaps.
Do they actually understand tag?
Okay, cool, check.
Don't need to come back to thatone again.
Do they actually understandclaim?
Oh, no?
Okay, we're going to do a claimversus a statement sort.
We're going to spend more timeworking on this.
I'm going to provide them with aprompt.
All I want them to do is write aclaim.
And I could have them do thatmultiple times, right?
(21:47):
And so on and so forth.
So it's like I'm piecing outeach section where they're
struggling.
I like to think of this from anathletics perspective.
Let's say that my team...
And it's a beautiful example,actually.
Let's say that my team is reallystruggling in a game and we go
in at halftime and I'm like,what's the issue?
Okay.
(22:07):
As the coach, I'm like, what'sthe issue?
Why are we losing this game?
Why are we not cohesive as ateam right now?
I'm not going to like, try toreteach dribbling and shooting
and passing and all the plays.
No, I'm going to look for theBecause we keep turning over the
ball or we're losing becausewe're not getting enough
offensive rebounds or we'relosing because our three point
(22:31):
percentage is 10% instead of 35,right?
So there's a pinpointed reasonwhy we're quote unquote losing.
So in this case, there's apinpointed reason why your
students aren't getting thestrong paragraph.
Yes, for some of our students,it's going to be the whole
thing.
And for others, it's just goingto be pieces of it.
But that's why it's so importantto really kind of break this
(22:51):
down and start to understand,oh, 50% of my class does not get
premise.
They just don't get it.
Or 100% of my class isstruggling with the whole thing.
I got to go back to square onein that case, right?
So you start to see where I'mgoing with this, right?
But I think it's reallyimportant for you to kind of
take away from this is that whenstudents can't write a strong
(23:13):
paragraph, it does not mean thatyou one have failed at all.
And it also too, doesn't meanthat they aren't capable.
It just means that they need astructure that makes thinking
visible to them.
So you don't need a fullcurriculum overhaul.
You don't need a full writingoverhaul.
You just need to focus on arepeatable paragraph structure,
like what I walked you through.
And like I said, we use thisinside of our membership, inside
(23:35):
of our portal, every single daywith students, it works.
And if you want access to it andyou want to join us inside, make
sure you add your name to ourpriority list at ebteacher.com
forward slash portal.
But definitely join me for nextweek's three-day writing
workshop.
It's going to be a game changer.
You're going to learn so much.
I'm going to give you tons ofgreat resources, including one
focused on tag.
(23:56):
And I really just, I hope thatthis podcast episode helps you
and serves you in some way ofjust really changing our
thinking about how we'rethinking about what our students
are quote-unquote not getting orwhat our students are
quote-unquote failing at, right?
Because justification literallymight take them seven months,
eight months, the entire schoolyear for it to finally be like,
(24:18):
oh, now I understand what to do.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
That's why they're in yourclass, right?
That's why they're there.
That's why we're learning.
And that's why we never give up.
All right, you guys, have awonderful rest of your day.
This is Erin Woodhahn.
the July 3rd.
So tomorrow, 4th of July, tothose of you who celebrate, hope
(24:38):
you have a great holiday andwe'll see you guys next week on
the podcast.
Thanks everyone.
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