ABSTRACT
Once students understand a topic fully, they can be invited to prewrite, to complete the task on which all later writing tasks depend. Prewriting is like human feet, or so podiatrists claim. A word bank provides a scaffold that leads students through strong, independent choices as they organize their thoughts. A formula overpowers authentic thought, producing contrived writing. Prewriters following a formula run into problems because they have been taught to follow the formula regardless of their own thoughts. They feel locked into making their thoughts fit the formula. Writing topic prompts force students to point their thoughts to the state standard, but they must stay in their minds with their thoughts as they do. A big part of the success of the word bank as a prewriting tool will be the use of the terms voice, pictures and flow. By contrast, both under-directed quick-writes and over-directed formulas for prewriting fall short in moving students to standards of authentic writing.
