Write in front of them
Write your own short piece on the board and say every thought out loud: "I need a topic sentence. What's my big idea?" Cross things out and fix them. Kids learn that messy first drafts are normal and how real writers decide what to change.
Why it works: handing over the work step by step, from teacher to student, is one of the most widely used teaching frameworks (Pearson and Gallagher, 1983).
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