Let's Start With A Few Little Trees

On the first day of school, I equip each of my AP students with a box of crayons.

In my twenty years at Sperry High School, I have been dubbed the Bob Ross of Composition for a reason.

Even though it’s the first day, I talk to my students about pedagogy and the difference between “assigning” writing and the direct “teaching” of it.

I cop a Bob Ross persona in the moment and tell them that I am going to have them experience the difference between assigning and teaching.

And then I tell them to imagine Bob Ross coming onto the screen and saying: “Hello, happy little people. Today we are going to paint a beautiful New England autumnal landscape with beautiful fall foliage and in the center of our canvas we are going to include a New England wood-covered bridge seated above a little babbling brook.”

But Bob Ross doesn’t paint with them.

In fact, he flees the screen for the entire half-hour episode and from afar states the directions again just for added clarification.

“Oh yeah … here’s a graphic organizer” – I tell my students.

Then I sit at my desk and tell them that they have twenty more minutes to complete the demands of the assignment.

This is what assigning looks like.

Next, I wheel my easel to the center of the room and place my canvas directly in the middle of it. 

I put some healthy gobs of paint on my palette and arrange my brushes.

“Let’s start with a few trees” – I say.

And the students pick up their crayons and follow my lead.

“How many of you know what a New England wood-covered bridge is? Who’s ever been to New Hampshire?”

Very few hands go up.

And I walk the students through the entire process, step-by-step … stroke by stroke.

They follow my lead.

And the results look really good.

This is how writing should be taught.

There is a huge difference between assigning and teaching.

In our AP Strategies For Success two-hour intensive, I will teach you my three groundbreaking templates so that you can become a veritable Bob Ross of composition in your classroom.

Whenever I saddle my students with an essay, I stand at my easel and “paint” with them.

I show them that there are only two ways to properly structure a thesis: you either declare or invert.

And for every body paragraph, no matter the expository mode, I show them that the syllogistic method works every time without fail.

Show me don’t tell me.

It’s a comment that we often put on student’s drafts.

But we need to heed our own advice.

Let’s get to the real teaching of writing and put an end to merely assigning it.

Join us on September 11^th at 11 a.m. EST for a live Zoom session entitled AP Strategies For Success. I will demonstrate for you how my three templates can be used to write each FRQ for both Lang. and Lit.

If you’d like more information, please drop me a line or visit my webpage at http://teachinghow2write.com/advanced-placement-strategies-success/

Happy teaching and happy writing!