As most grade levels have finished up their Writing Norming Professional Development, one question that seem to be a recurring focus was what is elaboration and what is craft.  In simplified terms, we would define Elaboration as it has to do with saying more, putting more down on the page. Craft has to do with saying things better, in a stronger way — understanding the genre in which you the writer are writing.

Now let’s take the time to take a look on how you could approach the teaching of Elaboration.  In the book, The Big Book of Details: 46 Moves for Teaching Writers to Elaborate by Rozlyn Linder, she takes us on a journey through a myriad of strategies that would benefit our writers.

Zoom In is one Elaboration move in her book that is comprehensively laid out. She shows us an example from Andrew Clements book Frindle —

“Mrs. Granger kept a full set of thirty dictionaries on a shelf at the back of the room. But her pride and joy was one of those huge dictionaries with every word in a the universe in it, the kind of book it takes two kids to carry. It sat on its own little table at the front of her classroom, sort of like the altar at the front of the church.”

To zoom in is to tell your readers what you should pay attention to, giving the reader a clue as to what the author of the piece feels is important. In this excerpt above from Frindle, we can see that the dictionaries are going to be important. This excerpt was stretched out by being longer and more detailed.

You can practice this with the class by zooming in on an object in the classroom. Have the students describe what they are seeing. Have them stretch it out longer and in more detail, in other words they are being more specific. To further this lesson, have students for homework take a look in their homes and zoom in on an object describing it in more detail — stretching it out.

Craft, the art of saying things in a better, stronger way, is best taught to students using mentor text. In Stacey Shubitz’s book, Craft Moves: Lesson Sets for Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts she advocates for using well written picture books to use for a variety of power craft moves.

In Last Stop on Market Street by LaPena and Robinson, power craft moves that can be gleaned from this picture book  are: dialogue, internal thinking, ending, lead, repetition, punctuation to create voice, character details,show-don’t tell, setting details and the heart of the story.

One example of a power craft move is appealing to the senses in the lead. The author starts the story by describing a specific location, the smell of the location, and what it feels like. Examining the pictures will also help the students be vividly aware of the setting.

Elaboration and Craft is paramount to good writing. If you would like to work with one of the Instructional Coaches on this, please fill out our Coaching Request Form (link) and we will work with you to help your students become better more confident writers.

Works Cited

Clements, Andrew, and Brian Selznick. Frindle. LRS (Library Reproduction Service), 2000.

Linder, Rozlyn. The Big Book of Details: 46 Moves for Teaching Writers to Elaborate. Heinemann, 2016.

Peña Matt De la, and Christian Robinson. Last Stop on Market Street. Puffin, 2017.

Shubitz, Stacey. Craft Moves: Lesson Sets for Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts. Stenhouse Publishers, 2016.