Structures for Writing the First Draft provides a clearly-defined format that shows students how to create narrative, expository, and persuasive paragraphs and essays. Teachers can use this approach across the curriculum. For example, the expository paragraph format is as applicable to a science experiment about acceleration as to the high school English class analyzing Macbeth. The narrative format provides students with a step-by-step approach for composing a story with a clearly defined plot. By incorporating the strategies presented in Robert Pauker's Writing the First Draft, student proficiency increases in these three areas. Improved Organization Improved Comprehension Improved Communication Students learn to organize their thinking analytically in order to insure that paragraphs contain clear main ideas and in-depth explanations. In addition, students' comprehension improves because they are incorporating literal, inferential, and evaluative thinking into their writing. Students become proficient in writing coherent essays and narratives. As a result of instructing students to become proficient in the Pauker writing structures, student critical thinking skills improve markedly. Works for All Curriculum Areas Dr. Pauker's strategy can be integrated into all curricular areas including math, science, social studies and English. Dr. Pauker presents examples with annotated explanations in each content area.
About the Author: For over thirty years, Robert A. Pauker has been an educational consultant to scores of public school districts. Dr. Pauker is the founder of the Structured Writing and Thinking Program. He has designed multiple critical thinking strategies that have been implemented in hundreds of classrooms across all academic disciplines. Each of these thinking strategies is designed to enhance literacy and content skills, as well as student comprehension, organization, and comprehension. Implementation of Dr. Pauker's Structured Writing and Thinking strategies accelerates learning and student performance. Dr. Pauker is the co-founder of Logos Instructional Solutions that presents scores of lessons to maximize learning in multiple content areas. He works with administrators and teachers to match specific critical thinking and literacy strategies to the individual needs in the classroom that increase student learning proficiency. Dr. Pauker's implementation model is to train classroom teachers and administrators in one or more specific thinking strategies. Then, he works directly with each teacher in the classroom to demonstrate the practical application to literacy and to the content curriculum. Dr. K. Michael Hibbard, nationally known educator and current Assistant Superintendent of the North Salem, New York schools states: "Dr. Robert Pauker's strategies for reading and writing work with all students K-12! Dr. Pauker's strategies are exactly what we need to implement high-level instructional standards for ELA/literacy. Performance of students from the lowest performer to the highest improves. Teachers describe Dr. Pauker's strategies as some of the very best they have learned!" Dr. Pauker is the author of several articles and books, including Teaching Thinking and Reasoning Skills: Problems and Solutions published by The American Association of School Administrators.