Writing Springboard

This tool to scaffold students’ writing should be created from public charts developed during the unit. Using information from student-generated charts, the teacher can make this list and copy it for each student. Each student gets a vertical 1/2 slip of the paper and folds it in fourths to make a springboard. They can reveal each part of the springboard as they work on their explanation, making sure they include the ideas on the explanation checklist (ideally, a list generated by students, even if the teacher types it up to put on this springboard) and can use sentence frames if they’re stuck on how to phrase something. It also helps make students aware of what level of explanation they are writing – a what, how, or why level.