Planning and Chunking a Writing Assignment: How It's Done

Assignment: short research paper--1,000 words, on an election issue in the U.S. and incorporating information about current election issues from your choice one of the four selected international countries.

Oh goody. Another paper to write. 

Quick review: FF is wending his way through his political science 101 course at the local community college. Last fall and spring he took two remedial courses in reading and writing and did pretty well in both. But because of his dysgraphia (we talked about that here), the writing is still tough. This fall he started out with two courses, but one wasn't a good fit and was dropped early. 

History, politics, government, though--all right up his alley. I drop him off and pick him up from class twice a week, and he chats about videos they've watched or discussions they've had about constitutional rights, the Freedom Riders, the impact of a particular Supreme Court decision. 

All good stuff. But oh, the writing. He failed the midterm because half of the exam was an essay. Several other questions asked for short written answers (a definition of a term, an explanation of impact--something more than fill-in-the-blank or a list). Sigh. He's now using the testing center across campus to take the in-class quizzes because most of the answers require short, written answers or a paragraph or two of explanation. 

Fortunately, his overall grade will also be based on online quizzes (where he's fared much better), plus class participation, attendance, the final, a research paper, and this shorter paper. For obvious reasons, we steer clear of courses with lots of in-class writing assignments, or where the grade is based solely on the midterm and final exam or only on submitted papers. (Note:That's where it really helps to have an advisor in your corner who is familiar with the instructors on campus. As in our case, this may not always be the person in the disability services office.)

So, yes, we help him at home with the writing. We help him a lot. But we do not write his papers for him. And, no, it's not a pretty process. Be glad I'm not sharing video here. As in K-12, whenever there was a writing assignment, there is still some gnashing of teeth and doors slamming. For my part, there is a glass of wine during the breaks. 

For what it's worth, I'll share here what seems to work, or at least get us all through the assignment. The key for us is chunking. Say, what? you may ask. Chunking is slicing and dicing a task into manageable bites. It's not a new concept by any means--teachers have been using it forever. But for writers on the spectrum, at least OUR writer on the spectrum, we need to chunk up parts of a project or larger task that might seem obvious to other learners. 

Part I: Step-by-step Planning

Armed with your Ginsu knives, then, let's plan the 1,000-word POLS101 assignment. We write these steps down, so he can visualize them. And, of course, he gets to check them off as he goes along. 

1. Obtain assignment and look over requirements. (1,000 words, use of video from previous week, additional research. Due date.)
2. Decide which country and what election issue to focus on.
3. Watch the video for chosen country. 
4. Do additional research and take notes on video.
5. Answer the question: "What is it that you want to say about the topic?" This will be your thesis.
6. Decide on three points you want to make about your thesis.
7. Develop outline.
8. Write the Intro, Body (three points and possible sub-points), and Conclusion.
9. Cite references using MLA style (or whichever is required by the instructor. We use both Purdue Owl and Son of Citation Machine for formatting.)
10. Edit and proofread. 
11. Print or submit online.

Part II: Chunking

Easy peasy, right? Wrong. To a student with ASD and/or dysgraphia, it looks overwhelming and daunting. So what we do next is take a brightly colored marker and draw brackets around items on the list and note what day and time that part of the assignment will be completed. Really important: He makes these decisions, not us. We can give input about possible schedule conflicts, but it's essential that he feels he has had a say into what will get done when. By the time we wrote down the task list, he had already completed the first three tasks, so he checked those off. 

Taking into account the due date, what football games were occuring when (don't mess with the Bears schedule!) and what times he wanted to work out, he decided to do the research and video notes Thursday evening. The thesis and the outline development were saved for Friday evening. Saturday afternoon he wrote just the intro and the first paragraph. Sunday afternoon he finished the body and the conclusion. The last three steps we finished on Tuesday evening. He took a 10-minute nerve-calming break in the midst of the writing on Sunday and the reference citing on Tuesday. Breaks are still essential. Also, I scribed for him in order to type the actual paper. If he had done this alone, on his laptop and/or dictating speech to text, we would've had to further slice and dice the composition part of the writing and allow for probably an extra three or four slots in the schedule. 

I'm hoping I can hand off a template of the chunking method to a tutor next semester. And I'm really hoping FF can learn to become more independent with some of the steps. The fine art of fading. 

Also, whenever a teacher specifies a word count, there is a considerable amount of stopping to, duh, count words. I'm not thrilled with this, since it takes the focus off the quality of the topic. I would much rather the teacher specify the font size and spacing and then give a page range, e.g., 3-4 pages. Instead, we have Mr. Essay Accountant, keeping tabs on Word's little counter in the corner of the screen while he also watches the clock. Think Lucy's vegetable inventory in "The Book Report" song from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. You've never heard "The Book Report"?? Oh, good grief! Click here. Like Lucy, FF could fill a paper with 1,000 words of fluff and call it a day, thinking he'd met the requirement. 

Two more weeks and then the final. Anyone else have some paper-writing survival solutions they'd be willing to share?  12 pt. type, double spaced, and 50 words or less, please!