How to use the draft notebook

How to use the draft notebook in a relevant way? Indeed, the draft is a tool that is too little used. However, it allows for real planning and emphasizes the work of progression that writing requires. In this article, we offer you different avenues to think about it and, we hope, to get you started!

Go through the draft.

Mastering the subject on which one writes facilitates the production activity. The writing activity may therefore require, initially, preparatory activities that improve the quality of the texts produced.

They can take different forms

  • a search for information, a collective reflection to find ideas (for fiction);
  • preparatory notes; work on the vocabulary to be used; a diagram, a drawing, etc.

Why not collect all the notes on the table or in a large research table?

For children, changes to a draft are costly. Starting with a work phase in a form other than text (diagram, table, drawing, etc.) could therefore allow for structuring and exploration before writing. You can also offer a starter sentence as we do at Plume. This priming effect is often very “unblocking” for children who, in reality, just need to get started.

How to use the scratch book in class

At school, many of us have experimented with the use of a rough notebook, which allows us to write the first draft of an essay more or less freely. A rough notebook or test notebook in which we try to write, often in a linear fashion, before copying it out diligently, often “clean”. This is an institutionalized school object.

Unfortunately, the use of rough drafts often results in a simple copying/cleaning up and does not allow students to improve their production. This implementation of written production, which is practiced more than it is taught, greatly conditions how students go about producing this type of school writing: writing a first draft and then copying cleanly (Billon, 2012).

We see how this vision of the draft is out of step with what the production of a text should be: thinking, anticipating, taking a break, reading, returning to the text, reworking it… The work of cognitive psychologists (Goult, 1980; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986) shows that planning, as preparatory reflection and an operation that continues throughout the writing (in particular at the time of pauses or stops in the graphic or motor gesture) can cover up to two-thirds of the production time and greatly determines the text and the production process.

Teaching drafting strategies is beneficial to students.

  • A relevant use of the draft allows students to be relieved of part of the task at the time of the final production, and thus to concentrate more effectively on spelling.
  • Final improvement of the quality of the texts produced.

We must therefore think about teaching the draft strategy: what is a draft, and what is it for? It is a question of both teaching how to plan the production of text but also of observing draft models. (Find our draft models on page XX).

Strategies for using the draft

  • Linear draft: This is a draft that has few differences from the final text. It is fully written and may be subject to some modifications and corrections. This is the traditional way of considering the draft.
  • The instrumental draft: this is a draft that presents the written structures. It contains groups of words, lists, tables, arrows, numbers, and symbols of all kinds; this can be, for example, mind maps, drawings, etc.

At the end of this book, we offer examples of mind maps to use with your children. The instrumental draft allows you to construct your thoughts and implement the writing strategies that we discussed earlier.

At Plume, we also use notepads to allow children to write down what they need before starting to write.

The two types of draft functions

They do not have the same functions and do not act at the same level of the writing process.

  • Linear drafting improves communication. It is more common in young children (before 12 or 13 years old).
  • The instrumental draft is intended to communicate with oneself. It is located further upstream in the writing process. It allows for planning.

We can therefore understand that there is no need to try to ensure that your child’s draft is as close as possible to the final writing because that would amount to erasing the entire function of the draft itself. The moments of cothe nstruction of the writing (the famous “intermediate writings” as they are called in institutional texts) are therefore just as much to be valued as the final writings.

4 Things to Know About Draft Usage Strategies:

1. The use of instrumental drafts increases with the educational level and the increase in mastery of writing.

2. A significant change occurs from this point of view in the general and technological second-year class.

3. The nature of the text to be produced plays a significant role. Writing an informative text increases the use of an instrumental draft.

4. The two types of drafts do not have the same functions and do not act at the same level of the writing process.

And of course, on Plume, we encourage this writing with targeted and real-time reprints of writings.

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