Organizing Your Thoughts

I wanted to make a video that gave test taking tips, but specifically, test taking tips for the STAAR Writing Test so let's get right to it. When you look at the topic, when you read the topic for your STAAR Writing Test whether it be a personal narrative essay or an expository essay the first thing you're going to have to do is organize your thoughts. Sometimes that can be a difficult thing. People struggle organizing their thoughts. And because they struggle with that, sometimes their paper is not as good as it could be. Here is the first step. The first step in organizing your thoughts is brainstorming. It's pre-writing, that's what some people call it. It allows you to generate your ideas. It keeps you from getting in this mode of there has to be guidelines or expectations There's no guidelines or expectations. You just need to generate ideas. Write down as many ideas about that topic as possible so that you will have information in order to organize and write. Once you have those ideas written down that's when you can start organizing. Sometimes people try to organize before they even have the ideas written down; and that is not okay. Make sure you get your ideas on paper and then organize those thoughts. Here are some ways to pre-write First of all, just write. Just let it come out. Let whatever words in your head, come out on paper. You can outline it. Sometimes people like to do that. As they're getting those ideas out there they put it in an outline form; and that's fine. If that is the way you think, then that is a good way to brainstorm. Some people cluster and use graphic organizers. They group certain ideas together based on a certain type or a certain topic. Maybe that is easier for you Whatever is the easiest, and will allow you to effectively get your thoughts on paper, use that method. Now, after you have taken that first step of pre-writing and brainstorming the second step in the writing process is drafting and organizing. Organize your thoughts, and then begin writing. Your thoughts have been written down, now organize them and begin this rough draft process. Be prepared to make mistakes. You're going to get two pieces of scratch paper on the writing test. Be prepared to make mistakes. It's supposed to be that way. Most people do not write their first draft and have it be the best thing out there so be prepared to erase. Be prepared to mark through words. That is fine because it's getting you to the point where your final draft will be excellent. If you struggle with organization, just keep it simple. If you're struggling with organizing your thoughts, keep it simple. Here's a way you can do that. First of all, you keep it simple by realizing, I only need three paragraphs. The first paragraph is the introduction, and it's going to state my topic. The second paragraph is the body and it's going to state the main idea or main ideas. You may have more than one main idea, and that is fine as long as you can support the main ideas that you have; but your body is where the main ideas are going to be. Paragraph three is just your conclusion. That's where you wrap it up. You come to a clear ending to your essay. Now here's an example of a personal narrative. This is something I put together quickly so that you could see what it's like to organize your thought. If the topic is a time you had to overcome a difficult situation, then the thing that I used was moving to Texas. My formula and my main point of difficulty in my essay is going to be moving to Texas, and the support that I'm going to give for that is an expired driver's license, a missing birth certificate, and taking the test. The final sentence of my introduction will say this: "I remember a time when I had to overcome the difficult situation of getting a Texas driver's license." My body will be organized with the main idea being "moving to Texas." My support of that being three things: first one "expired out-of-state driver's license," the second one "missing birth certificate," and the third one "taking the test." My conclusion, then, would have this whole idea being, "ultimately, the difficult situation led to happy times deep in the heart of Texas." That is a simple way to organize your thoughts. Now, if we're looking at an expository essay, here is another example. The topic could be "what is better dress code or school uniforms." The formula for that, the main idea ... you have to take a stance with an expository so my stance might be that dress codes are better, and then I have to give reasons why. That would be "more freedom" and "prevents distrations." So my thesis statement would say "It is better to have a dress code because it allows for more freedom and prevents distractions." My body, because I'm focusing on this idea that dress code is better than school uniforms I would keep that same idea of dress code and then I would use support, talking about how it gives more freedom and how it prevents distractions. My conclusion, then, I would have to restate my thesis so my conclusion would say, "allowing greater freedom and prevention of distractions are two ways a dress code is better than school uniforms." This is a simple way to organize your thoughts in an expository essay. Now, if you need more tips. If you need to see more examples on how expository essays are written or how personal narrative essays are written, you can go to mrferrero.com, and there's a link on test taking tips, where it will give you sample personal narrative essays, and sample expository essays that were written on the STAAR Writing test, last year. You'll even see which ones were graded at what level. Eight being the highest. One being the lowest. You'll be able to see the examples of what is good and what is bad, in regards to essay writing. Ultimately, what I know is, you have everything it takes to be successful on this test.