Chapter 3

[Grace]

This chapter focuses on ideas that can be used, organized or assessed when writing a paper. This is the first step in writing a paper because it is the first of the six traits discussed in chapters 1 and 2. In the textbook it describes ideas as the main point in the writer’s passage or paper. The ideas in the paper can correlate to the knowledge that they have on the topic because the writer should be able to inform the readers about the assigned topic. In order to gain knowledge on the topic the writer must first research to find insightful ideas that he or she might want to include in his passage. Once the writer has an idea of what they want to include in the passage the textbook provides many ways for the writer to sort and evaluate through his ideas, so they chose effective ideas for the paper. One tool that the textbook provides for teachers are guides for teachers to give to students, but also a guide for assessing the student’s ideas. I found this very useful for classrooms as they can provide students with a check list for writing their ideas, but also keep the student and teacher connected in how they want papers to be structured. The textbook also provides teachers with writing samples, where they can read then assess to see if what they found matches with the scores from the textbook. Using this method for practice would allow teachers to better assess all students equally. It can also be an example for teachers to show students how they will score their ideas in a paper.