'Tis the seasons for all things cold and flu (as evidenced by my raspy voice in this particular video), but it's also that time of year that I delve into the teaching of synthesis writing.
Typically, I hurl a former exam at my kids and we dig right in.
But truth be told, the results always disappoint me.
Here is the main reason why: grappling and tussling with a variety of bulky sources typically derails my struggling and emerging writers.
So ... I invented an approach I'm branding as "Micro-Synthesis: ViewMaster Edition."
In brief, all the source materials must fit into one ViewMaster slide (which I made in Canva).
To demonstrate this concept, in this week's instructional writing workshop video we tackle the infamous G.O.A.T debate in basketball (I teach a ton of sophomore boys who banter this topic endlessly).
In the early portion of the video, we go over how I made and gathered the source material (there are a total of six sources).
From here, I do that "Bob Ross" thing I always do in which I "paint" for teachers and students a number of introductory paragraphs that employ both the declarative and inverted theses heuristic.
Moving on to the body paragraphs, we get into the real muck and mire of synthesis writing (embedding quotes, getting the sources to talk to each other, building and sustaining the argument cogently, concessions, rebuttals, etc) ... I go real slow ... so things should nicely unfold for your students and some light bulbs should definitely illumine.
If folks like this, I will record some of the other topics we wrestled with such as predictive TV programming, banning Tik-Tok, cell phone use in schools, government oversight of our food sources, book banning, the existence of UFOs, representations of feminine beauty in Disney films, etc.
Taking this approach really feels aligned this year. My boys (who typically struggle) slam dunked this one. Their writing was superb. But the kicker - I loved to see them geek out about their learning (that's been absent this year).
All the slides featured in the video, plus the source packet, are free for the taking (just scroll down a tad bit in the video's description).
Happy teaching and happy writing
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