In Engaging Ideas, John Bean discusses “the frame strategy” for use with small groups. “Using this strategy, the instructor gives students a mapping sentence that predicts the shape of a short essay but not the content. Students have to create content topic sentences to head each predicted section and develop a supporting argument for each one. Often the instructor can include in the task a blank tree diagram or an outline indicating the slots that students’ ideas must fit”
This sounds very interesting to me, but rather challenging. Even though he provides an example, I still can’t quite envision how to actually do this. It seems like it would require a lot of prep before hand: envisioning a full essay and mapping it out. I also can’t quite picture how students I’ve worked with would take to the task.
Has anyone done this before? Could you let us know how you prepped the task, what it was exactly, and how it worked out? Thanks!
I am not familiar with this ‘frame strategy,’ but I do a lot of tree diagrams with my students. We usually pick a topic and create a thesis. Then, together we would come up with supporting ideas (the big branches in the tree) and supporting details (the smaller branches) for each idea. I usually do it on the board with them once. Then, I either provide them with another sample thesis for which they prepare a tree diagram (in the group or individually), or have each group or person come up with both a thesis and a tree for that thesis. I have never tried having them write a full paragraph as a group. I think that would be chaotic and not very productive.
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