jane schaffer expository writing

Argumentation

Expository and Informational Writing

Across-the-curriculum.

Expository/Informational Writing conveys information or educates a reader on a topic. In academic settings, the expository/informational response or essay is the most widespread of all the modes of writing because most content area teachers ask students to explain new learning through writing. Students are given a content-specific topic and are asked to write about the topic in a short-constructed response, an essay, or a research paper. Both formative assessments and summative assessments require writing. So, even when students know the answer to a question, many times they struggle to write their answers effectively. That's where Jane Schaffer Academic Writing® comes to the rescue!

Expository/Informational Writing conveys information or educates a reader on a topic. In academic settings, the expository/informational response or essay is the most widespread of all the modes of writing because most content area teachers ask students to explain new learning through writing. Students are given a content-specific topic and are asked to write about the topic in a short-constructed response, an essay, or a research paper. Both formative assessments and summative assessments require writing. So, even when students know the answer to a question, many times they struggle to write their answers effectively. That's where Jane Schaffer Academic Writing® comes to the rescue! Whether a third-grade student is asked to explain the difference between the seasons; or, an eighth-grade student is asked to write a lab report for science; or, an eleventh-grade student is asked to analyze the Gettysburg Address, the Jane Schaffer Academic Writing Program gives teachers and students the tools to create and communicate a logical and coherent piece of writing about what they have researched, what they have studied, and what they have learned.

Expository & Informational Products

Expository/Informational Writing Across-the-Curriculum Webinar Series

Learn techniques of summarization, science lab reports, and writing expository and informational texts for both non text-based and text-based writing.

SBAC: Explanatory Performance Task

This training helps teachers to prepare their students to be successful on the SBAC Informational/Explanatory performance task.

Tiered Writing for Elementary Webinar Series

This webinar series provides PK-5 elementary educators with professional development in teaching JSWP to elementary students. ‍

Enseñando el ensayo de múltiple-párrafos: Escritura expositiva e informativa en todo el currículo (3-12)

La enseñanza de la escritura expositiva/informativa en las clases de inglés (lengua) y en las clases interdisciplinarias.

Expository and Informational Writing Across-the-Curriculum Teacher's Guide

This guide includes new passages and new strategies to help teachers guide students to writing success.

Expository and Informational Writing for English Language Learners (ELL)

This type of instruction is also known as EL, LEP, ESL, ESOL, ELD, EB, and ENL.

Expository and Informational Writing for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) 6-12

This guide provides teachers with a tried and true step-by-step thinking and writing process for students to produce written texts.

SBAC Teacher’s Guide: Explanatory Constructed Responses and the Performance Task

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is a comprehensive suite of standards-aligned assessments.

Tiered Writing for Elementary Guide (Grades PK-5)

A teacher's guide designed specifically for teaching JSWP® to grades PK-5.

Google Docs Template – JSWP® Expository Graphic Organizers

JSWP® Digital Expository Graphic Organizers

Google Docs Templates Set - Argumentation, Expository, Response to Literature, and Narrative

JSWP® Digital Graphic Organizers Set for Argumentation, Expository, Response to Literature, and Narrative.

Chants Poster

This poster displays the chants for Topic Sentence, Concrete Detail, Commentary, and Concluding Sentence.

Concrete Details Poster (Elementary)

This poster helps elementary students gather concrete details.

Concrete Details Poster (Secondary)

This poster helps secondary students gather concrete details.

Expository - Math and Science Terms Poster

This poster displays similar expository terms for math and science.

Expository - Social Studies Terms Poster

This poster displays similar expository terms for social studies.

Expository Poster

This poster helps students understand how expository writing differs from literary analysis.

Expository Terms Poster

This poster displays terms for expository.

Generating Commentary Poster (Secondary)

This poster helps secondary students generate commentary.

Transitions Poster

This poster helps students create transitions.

A Journey Through Expository Writing: Student Consumable Workbook

The workbook allows students to practice skills, strategies, and the writing process deepening their ability and their knowledge of expository writing.

Knollipop Shoppe Box

Our new Knollipop® Shoppe is a box of sweet activities for students learning the Jane Schaffer Academic Writing Program®.

Benefits of Expository and Informational Writing

JSWP uses common terminology that allows teachers and students to talk about writing from a shared perspective and understanding. Through every step of the writing process, teachers are able to communicate clearly their expectations, and students can meet those expectations in their written responses. Students no longer anxiously wonder if they are delivering what the teacher wants, and teachers have language to provide solid instruction in order to teach writing rather than just assign writing.

After thirty-five years of reviewing writing samples for ever-evolving high-stakes tests, including state and national tests, Advanced Placement® exams, and the International Baccalaureate Program, Dr. Louis and the Jane Schaffer Academic Writing Program provide teachers and students with insight and skill regarding expository/informational writing to achieve higher scores.

JSWP helps teachers learn how to design the most effective expository/informational response or essay prompts, and students learn the important skill of decoding these writing prompts so that the students know the specifics of a writing assignment before the writing begins. There are no more blank stares or confusion about the purpose of the writing assignment.

The JSWP color-coded method of writing also applies to close reading. Students learn to annotate their texts in the same colors that they learned in their JSWP writing lessons so that students make connections between their close reading of a text and their own writing across-the-curriculum.

JSWP helps students to understand how to evaluate and use the best evidence to support their assertions when writing an expository/informational response or essay.

Providing insightful, thoughtful, and erudite analysis can be one of the most difficult challenges for educators to teach and one of the most frustrating and ambiguous ideas and skills for students to understand and learn. JSWP provides a method of asking questions and unpacking thoughts so that those thoughts transfer from the students’ minds onto their papers or computer screens.

JSWP offers specific expository/informational graphic organizers. Students follow a prewriting process to draft their writing assignments; and through the famous "JSWP Shaping Sheet," they practice grammar skills, integrate effective transitions, improve their vocabulary, and learn revision and editing techniques prior to submitting their writing assignments to their teachers for a grade.

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Wilson Hill Academy

Classical christian education – online on purpose since 2014, why use the schaffer writing method.

Wilson Hill Academy uses the Jane Schaffer approach in our Fundamentals of Expository Writing class (School of Logic; grades 7 & 8). Those not familiar with the method may want to know why we use it and how it compares with other commonly used approaches such as Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) or the Shurley method.

The Schaffer approach is qualitatively different from these other methods, because it guides students into the “Logic” stage of learning. IEW, Shurley and other programs teach students how to “frame” their thoughts on paper during the “Grammar” stage. Schaffer goes to the next level and teaches them how to organize their thoughts so that they can analyze, interpret, and assess textual material (and ideas). Thus, Schaffer is the perfect “next” step in the classical method. Students learn to think deductively; as I often tell them, they are like Sherlock Holmes walking onto a crime scene. They must look at the general situation and from that assess what the important “facts” are. The Schaffer method calls these facts “concrete details” (CDs). From there, students use the context of those facts to determine the meaning of the text. Why did the author use those facts at that particular point in the text? Students also bring their own knowledge of life and universal truths to bear on the situation. What is the point of the passage? What does it reveal about the character, or what message is the author communicating to the reader?

When students begin to think analytically, they begin to think independently. Of course, this is the goal of a classical education. The skills students gain from learning to write analytically also prepare them well for college. Not only will they have learned how to write a good essay and interpret ideas thoughtfully; they will have built up these thinking skills within the context of their Christian roots. The necessity of having such skills before entering the halls of higher education – especially in today’s culture – cannot be overemphasized. The Jane Schaffer method takes time to learn in the beginning – students are building up their “deductive” muscles. But with guidance and practice, they will begin to become independent thinkers during the “Logic” and “Rhetoric” phases of their classical experience. The method teaches students to weave their own voices into the voice of the text, essentially adding their voices to “ The Great Conversation ” as they interact with material presented in other classes.

One of the “non-negotiables” of the Schaffer method is that the teacher is to move the student past the method as soon as possible. The “method” is merely a way of bringing students’ minds to bear; training them to focus so that they successfully learn the process of deductive, analytical reasoning in a methodical manner. As students begin to incorporate the techniques so that they think and write inferentially, they have begun the process of independent thinking – the ultimate goal of our educational efforts.

Submitted by Cindy Lange, WHA Composition & Literary Analysis Instructor

Schaffer Writing Model

Greenville County Schools

Adapted from Jane Schaffer

Kerry Hanning

What is the Schaffer model?

• The Schaffer model provides guidance in how to include details, elaboration, and organization in many different types of writing – descriptive, expository, analytical, and persuasive.

Steps in the Writing Process

• Pre-writing (brainstorming)
• Shaping the Essay (outlining, organizing)
• First Draft
• Peer Response
• Final Draft

Parts of the Essay

Introductory Paragraph

• Body Paragraph
• Topic Sentence
• Concrete Details
• Concluding Sentence
• Conclusion Paragraph
• Starts with lead or attention-getter
• Narrows down into thesis - opinionated, single sentence statement of the main idea of the essay

Outline of a body paragraph

You will write a minimum of 11 sentences:

• Topic Sentence (TS)
• Concrete Detail 1 (CD 1)
• Commentary (CM 1A)
• Commentary (CM 1B)
• Concrete Detail 2 (CD 2)
• Commentary (CM 2A)
• Commentary (CM 2B)
• Concrete Detail 3 (CD 3)
• Commentary (CM 3A)
• Commentary (CM 3B)
• Concluding Sentence (CS)

What is a topic sentence?

• The first sentence of a paragraph
• Summarizes what the entire paragraph will be about
• YOUR OWN WORDS – never a quotation or example

What is a concrete detail?

• Facts used to back up your topic sentences
• Quotations, examples, proof, evidence
• Called concrete because they can be seen or touched – they are facts
• MAY NOT BE YOUR OWN WORDS

What is commentary?

• Your interpretation of the facts
• Your explanation of the facts
• Your opinions!
• YOUR OWN WORDS

What is a “chunk”?

• The smallest unified group of thoughts you can write
• 1 concrete detail with 2 sentences of commentary

What is a concluding sentence?

• A summary sentence for the paragraph
• The topic sentence in different words

Concluding Paragraph

• Ends the essay
• All commentary
• No new concrete details

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Essay writing with the Schaffer method: facts you need to remember

The schaffer paragraph, excellent benefits of the schaffer method.

• Since the formula breaks down the key sentences in every paragraph it really forces students to hone in on the most important parts of any essay. They can separate the important points of their essay from any 'fluff' that they may gather up when writing. It also helps to take away any type of ambiguity or confusion surrounded around grading; the student knows exactly what the teacher is looking for and what to do in order to correct a poor score.
• The method is also especially useful for inexperienced students that may find it difficult to put together an essay or really any form of writing (*this is by far may be the greatest advantage it offers). The instructions are plain and simple and hard to misinterpret.
• The distinction between 'commentary' sentences and 'concrete' ones really helps students to understand that essays are made up evidential support such as facts and raw data and a writer's input such as evaluations, 'comments', or states and claims.

Understanding Schaffer's terminology

1. topic sentence, 2. concrete detail.

• Direct quotes
• Paraphrases
• Plot references
• Illustrations
• Or other researched facts
• For instance
• For example
• To illustrate
• Illustrated with
• In this case
• Specifically

3. Commentary

4. concluding sentence, our top writers.

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Jane Schaffer Writing Program Blog What is Expository Writing?

Dear dr. d,i've been researching expository writing and keep getting this type of definition: expository writing is devoid of descriptive detail and opinion. it contains just the facts.how can i reconcile that statement with the schaffer method thanks, annettedear annette,interesting.aristotle deserves much of the credit for initially classifying the modes of discourse into deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. over the years, however, teachers and professors have delimited the modes to help teach writing. typically, they are divided into four categories: argumentation, narrative, literary analysis, and expository. we all know that the modes are not as mutually exclusive as some would think; certainly, an argument may have description, analysis, and even narration. however, let's get to your question. "expository" is too broad of a term to give such a narrow definition as the above one.there are many different forms of exposition: process analysis, exemplification, definition, classification and division, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and problem and solution, to name the most popular. look at that topic sentence handout that i gave you. you'll see some of the various forms, topic sentence examples, and prompt suggestions. the definition you provide lends itself to the type of expository writing that does not require commentary or analysis (e.g., explaining a process, explaining a plot, providing an accounting of what was taught in class today, inductive reasoning by giving examples only). it sounds like one that would be given by a teacher in the sciences and social sciences who might first ask her/his students to describe something, perhaps a behavior or phenomenon. her/his next step might be to take the evidence and look at causes and effects. the final step might be to create an argument about it. so, the definition you are giving me suggests that it might be part of a progression -the first part, or providing the facts. in other words, first, writers collect the evidence (expository), then they might evaluate it (argumentation). expository comes from the word "expose." the prefix "ex-" comes from greek through latin and means "out, or away from." the root of the word comes from the latin verb ponere which means "to place." translated literally, exposition means "to place out," and what we are placing out is the information. so, i can see why some would argue that it is fact only. however, the definition you provide is not the norm for state and national standards that ask students to analyze the information they present - also considered expository/explanatory.keep reading and writinghappy new year,dr. d', followers on owler.

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