My English support class is almost entirely focused on improving student writing, and the only solution I have for this is to write. Constantly. The students in my class struggle with organizing ideas into coherent paragraphs, creating sentences that fill informational gaps to fully express those ideas, and linking paragraphs so that the ideas in one builds on the ideas of the previous into something greater.

This, by the way, is not easy, and it is a struggle that students find across content areas. When they have difficulty with the order of operations in math, this is a structural problem. When they struggle with the scientific method, this is a structural problem. The ability to order ideas in a sequence takes practice, and we take regular opportunities to do this in class. 

While I ask that my students write - and rewrite, and rewrite - on a number of different topics, I have also taken to the Kelly Gallagher (author of Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts) approach of writing in front of them using my document camera. By showing them the process that a practiced writer experiences, students can see that first drafts are messy, that dead-ends happen, and good writing is more about cleaning up mediocre first drafts than it is channeling an inner wunderkind. 

Most recently, we wrote small blurbs on a variety of topics, subjected them to peer review, and were tasked with expanding on them based on our audience's preferences. I participated as well, and students asked that I expand on a piece of writing I did where I explained what 4 A.M. was:

4 A.M.

A time that provides a significant dilemma for anyone awake to experience it. It is at this time when you decide whether or not you will finally go to sleep or if you will stay up into the next day. Most recently, this is when I make the same choice because my six-month-old daughter refuses to sleep more than two hours at a time. 

This piece of writing was brief with an intention of humor and not much else, and I didn't have any other designs on it beyond that. I would have to expand on it, however, as my students would have to expand on some of their writing. To help in this expansion,  I also had each student offer suggestions for details that could be added. This is an instrumental step for my students, as they frequently tell me they "don't have anything else to write." I do not doubt that they are at a momentary dead-end, but this is nearly always in part because they do not consider their audience and what that audience might want or need out of the writing. 
 

Do you use a baby monitor? Where does the baby sleep? What do you eat at 4 A.M.? What do you dream of? Do you take care of the baby at night too? Do you help during the week or just on weekends? Do you usually decide to go back to sleep? 

So the students made suggestions for me

After reviewing my original writing and the questions they asked, I began a new draft, one that was going to be expanded with a specific purpose, which would be to explain my experience with 4 A.M. and reflect on its importance. What I produced was a mix of honesty and theater, but the students were able to see my writing process; I dictated my intentions for each paragraph, I talked about how I was making use of the needs of my audience, and I made note of where I was succeeding (in my opinion) and where I was getting off track. The resulting, expanded draft (and my comments to the class) follows:

4 A. M. 

In the introduction I attempt to connect the the general topic of staying up late. I'm trying to give my audience something to relate to before connecting it more specifically to my experience, which creates a focus for the essay to follow.

It is sometimes hard to stop binge-watching that Netflix show, or talking to a friend, or playing that video game. Midnight rolls around, then past, and you think "Just a little more." If you are particularly cursed to enjoy fun more than sleep, this may lead you to 4 A.M. in the morning, at which point you flip a coin: do I sleep or not? I have struggled with this question, but most recently it isn't fun I have been enjoying at 4 A.M.; it is a crying baby. But still I ask myself; "what now?"

My daughter, Lillith Nicole, is my second. Her older sister Elena was a phenomenal night-time sleeper, staying down and quiet for nearly the whole night by four months. Lilli, who is now six months old, has not quite learned this skill. She wakes up after no more than two hours of sleep.

This paragraph attempts to address some of the questions my students had, specifically where she sleeps, the baby monitor, dreaming, and whether or not I help with her.

Two hours isn't always enough time to settle into a nice dream, and often it feels like I have just closed my eyes when I hear a coughing, a fuss, a bleating cry. This sound is immediate; being so young, our daughter still sleeps in our room, and I am usually up before fully awake, sometimes tripping over my dogs before getting to her crib.

At the beginning of this paragraph, I've realized that I have yet to get back to my topic (4 A.M. and the choice of staying up), and so I carefully steer back into it by the end of this paragraph.

When I reach the crib, there is a mental checklist I go through: is she wet, will she return to sleep with just her pacifier, does she need her noise machine, should I walk her around the room to settle her and - finally - does she need Mom? While I may have awoke a bumbling fool, by this time I am wide awake, and at four o'clock in the morning, it can be hard to want to return sleep again knowing Lilli will likely demand my attention once more before I start preparing for work.

Most of the time, I fall back in bed, especially in the winter. with the room cold and the bed both warm and companionable, it is often hard to resist, especially considering I have likely only slept in two two-hour cycles by this point. When I do get up, I shower. Hot. More than coffee and more than energy drinks, a hot shower wakes me into feeling human. From here, I would like to say I spend my time being productive - working out, preparing for work - but this is a rarity. I am awake and I do not want to be. So rather than productivity, I choose entertainment. 

Having returned to my stated focus and discussed the decisions I make on whether to stay up, it is now time to conclude. The conclusion should wrap up the ideas I mentioned at a minimum, but can also be an opportunity to connect to bigger ideas for the reader to consider on their own; in this case, why this time can have so much value.

At the time, the four o'clock video games feel like wasted time. They are certainly fun, but my diminished ability to think and my heavy eye-lids tend to leave me thinking "this is stupid" with every twitch of the analog stick. But later, when I look back on it, there is something romantic about it. There is a meditative quality about spending time to yourself in the early morning hours regardless of the activity. As the world wakes, with newspapers being thrown on to porches and sprinklers watering lawns, I sit blissfully in the glow of an electric first light. And I almost don't mind when my daughter calls me from it two hours later.