Writing That Fits Its Task

1. Draw three dials on the board and label them. Development: which details and how many. Organization: what comes first, next, last. Style: the words and the voice.
2. Read a task aloud: "A two-line text message telling your parent you missed the bus." Ask for all three settings. Expected: development very low (just the fact and what you'll do), organization news first, style short and casual.
3. Then: "An apology letter to the bus driver." Ask which dials moved. Fish for all three: more detail on why, an apology first, polite and full sentences.

1. Show the fact card: "Room 5B, river trip, May 14. 27 students. Tested water at three spots: the bridge, the bend, the drain pipe. Found mayfly larvae at the bridge and the bend (mayflies only live in clean water). No mayflies at the drain pipe; found two plastic bags and a can there. Bus was 20 minutes late. Lunch on the bank. Jamal fell in up to his knees."
2. Task 1: a report for parents on the school website. Set each dial aloud and write it on the strip. Development: the findings and what they mean; leave out lunch and Jamal. Organization: main finding first, because parents skim. Style: plain, complete sentences, no "I."
3. Write the model: "Room 5B tested the river at three spots on May 14. The water at the bridge and the bend is clean: students found mayfly larvae, which only live in clean water. The water near the drain pipe showed no mayflies, and students collected two plastic bags and a can there. The class will write to the town council about the drain."
4. Task 2: a letter to a friend at another school. Reset all three dials aloud. Development: Jamal and the late bus are now in, the numbers mostly out. Organization: the story in time order, saving the best moment. Style: chatty, first person, a joke allowed.
5. Write the model: "You will not believe our river trip. The bus was 20 minutes late, so we were already grumpy, but then we found mayfly babies at the bridge, which means the water is clean! The drain pipe was gross, full of bags and a can. And Jamal slipped in up to his knees and squelched all the way back to the bus."
6. Put the two paragraphs side by side. Ask a student to circle a difference in each dial. Make the point: the task moved all three. The commonest weak version changes only the style and keeps everything else.

“Three dials, and the task moves every one of them. If you only change the voice, you've written the same report in a different hat. Before you write, ask: what will my reader do with this? A parent skims for the news. A friend wants the story.”

1. Give pairs the same fact card and two new task cards: "A notice for the hallway asking students not to drop litter near the river" and "A diary entry written that evening."
2. Pairs fill a three-dial strip for each task before writing, with a reason beside every dial.
3. Each partner writes one paragraph. Together they mark one difference per dial with letters D, O and S in the margin.
4. Circulate and ask, "Which dial changed most between your two?" Expect "organization" for the notice, which puts the request first, and "development" for the diary, which adds feelings.

“Show me your D, your O and your S. If one of them is missing, that dial didn't move, and the task probably needed it to.”

1. Students complete the task-fit page: one fact set, two tasks, a planning strip for each, and space for two short paragraphs.

1. Ask: "Which dial is easiest to forget?" Take answers and confirm: usually organization, because people write in the order things happened.